Two Yale Faculty Earn Place on STAT List of 46 National Leaders in Life Sciences

Two Yale University faculty members, Julia Wang and Akiko Iwasaki, are among 46 life science leaders in the United States – in academic, government, business, medicine and nonprofits - to be named to what is described as “the ultimate list of leaders in life sciences.”

The second annual STAT list for 2023 includes Akiko Iwasaki, Professor of immunobiology, Yale School of Medicine, and Julia Wang is Professor, School of Medicine and director, SEICHE Center for Health and Justice, at Yale.

STAT is a media company focused on finding and telling compelling stories about health, medicine, and scientific discovery.  STAT is produced by Boston Globe Media.

Iwasaki’s recent work, focused on COVID-19’s impact, was the driving force behind her selection to the prestigious list.  The STAT description of her recent efforts:

“While much of the world tries to forget Covid-19 ever happened, Iwasaki’s research into — and communication about — the coronavirus and long Covid has amassed her more than 200,000 Twitter followers and made her an indispensable source for journalists covering the still-mysterious illness that follows an initial Covid infection. Among her 2022 publications were a preprint study identifying immunological differences in people with long Covid, a Nature study on the neurobiology of the chronic condition, and a paper in Science about her promising work into a Covid vaccine that would not be a shot, but a nasal spray.”

As part of a months-long process, STAT, which reports on “the frontiers of health and medicine,” indicated that it “leaned on its seasoned editorial team to research and identify hundreds of finalists who made noteworthy contributions to their fields over the past year.” Then a panel of STAT reporters and editors winnowed the list down, placing special emphasis on people who have “sought to help others and build community in these often-divisive times,” the website featuring the list explained.

The STAT write-up about Wang highlighted the impact of her career beyond Yale:

“The transition out of prison and back into the community can be a vulnerable time — especially for people with health conditions. Medical care often takes a back seat to finding housing and employment. Last year, physician and researcher Wang earned a prestigious MacArthur “genius” fellowship recognizing her dedicated efforts to address this dilemma. Back in 2006, she co-founded the first Transitions Clinic to provide primary health care for people who are reentering their communities after incarceration. Now a network of 48 clinics spread across 14 states and Puerto Rico, the centers also employ formerly incarcerated individuals as community health workers — a design that helps build patient trust.”

Wang is Founding Director of the SEICHE Center at Yale, a collaboration between the Yale School of Medicine and Yale Law School working to stimulate community transformation by identifying the legal, policy, and practice levers that can improve the health of individuals and communities impacted by mass incarceration. According to Yale, she leads the Center's research program, the Health Justice Lab, which receives National Institutes of Health funding to investigate how incarceration influences chronic health conditions, including cardiovascular disease, cancer, and opioid use disorder, and uses a participatory approach to study interventions which mitigate the impacts of incarceration.

Rick Berke, Co-Founder and Executive Editor of STAT, said of those earning a place on this year’s list of 46:  “Many are well-known as changemakers; others are largely unheralded heroes. They are CEOs, philanthropists, government officials, and health advocates. All have compelling stories to tell.”  He added that the list is “the definitive roster of leaders in health, medicine, and the life sciences whose work over the past year has advanced those fields.”