Katherine Henzler-Wildman

Katherine Anne Henzler-Wildman is the Jean V. Thomas Professor in Biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2024. She is known for her work on how proteins control the movement of molecules across membranes.

Education and career

Henzler-Wildman received a B.A. from Cornell University in 1998. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 2003. She then moved to Brandeis University where she worked with Dorothee Kern as a postdoctoral researcher until 2008 when she joined the faculty at Washington University in St. Louis. In 2015 moved to the University of Madison, and as of 2025 Henzler-Wildman is the Jean V. Thomas Professor in Biochemistry.

Research

Henzler-Wildman's early research determined structural details of lipid membranes and the dynamics of protein folding. She has investigated the protein EmrE and demonstrated how this protein pushes toxic molecules out of microbial cells.

Awards and honors

Henzler-Wildman was named a Searle Scholars Program in 2010, and received the Margaret Oakley Dayhoff Award from the Biophysical Society in 2013. She was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2024.