Katharine Chia-Rae Hsu is an American physician-scientist with a field of research in human

natural killer cells Natural killer cells, also known as NK cells, are a type of cytotoxic lymphocyte critical to the innate immune system. They are a kind of large granular lymphocytes (LGL), and belong to the rapidly expanding family of known innate lymphoid cells ...

. A professor of medicine at

Weill Cornell Medicine Weill Cornell Medicine (; officially Joan and Sanford I. Weill Medical College of Cornell University), originally Cornell University Medical College, is the medical school of Cornell University, located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in Ne ...

, she has served as the director of the

Tri-Institutional MD–PhD Program The Tri-Institutional MD–PhD Program is a MD–PhD degree program based in Upper East Side, New York City. Introduced in 1991, the current program is operated by Weill Cornell Medicine, Rockefeller University, and Memorial Sloan Kettering C ...

since April 2021.

Early life and education

Hsu lived in

Tuxedo Park, New York Tuxedo Park is a village in Orange County, New York, United States. Its population was 645 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Kiryas Joel–Poughkeepsie–Newburgh metropolitan area as well as the larger New York metropolitan area. Its name ...

for fifteen years. Hsu received a

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, B.S., B.Sc., SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree that is awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Scienc ...

and a

Master of Science A Master of Science (; abbreviated MS, M.S., MSc, M.Sc., SM, S.M., ScM or Sc.M.) is a master's degree. In contrast to the Master of Arts degree, the Master of Science degree is typically granted for studies in sciences, engineering and medici ...

from

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

in 1987. She received a

Doctor of Philosophy A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of Postgraduate education, graduate study and original resear ...

in cell biology in 1993 and a

Doctor of Medicine A Doctor of Medicine (abbreviated MD, from the Latin language, Latin ) is a medical degree, the meaning of which varies between different jurisdictions. In the United States, and some other countries, the ''MD'' denotes a professional degree of ph ...

in 1994, both from

Cornell University Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...

. During her doctoral studies at Cornell University, she studied at the laboratory of Moses Chao, who was her doctoral advisor. Her doctoral dissertation was titled, ''Mechanisms of TNF receptor action: Studies using chimeric receptor mutants''. Hsu completed an internship and residency in internal medicine at

Brigham and Women's Hospital Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH or The Brigham) is a teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School and the largest hospital in the Longwood Medical Area in Boston, Massachusetts. Along with Massachusetts General Hospital, it is one of the two ...

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

in 1997. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship in hematology and oncology at

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK or MSKCC) is a cancer treatment and research institution in Manhattan in New York City. MSKCC is one of 72 National Cancer Institute– designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers. Its main campus is ...

in New York City in 2002.

Career

Hsu joined the faculty of

Cornell Medical College Weill Cornell Medicine (; officially Joan and Sanford I. Weill Medical College of Cornell University), originally Cornell University Medical College, is the medical school of Cornell University, located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in Ne ...

. She worked as an instructor of medicine from 2003 to 2008, as an assistant professor of medicine from 2008 to 2011 and as an associate professor of medicine from 2011 to 2016. She was inducted into the

American Society for Clinical Investigation The American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI), established in 1908, is one of the oldest and most respected medical honor societies in the United States. Organization and purpose The ASCI is an honorary society to which more than 2,800 p ...

in 2012. She became a professor of medicine in 2017. Her field of research is

in humans and their role in killing cancer cells and cells with viruses. In April 2021, Hsu was named the director of the

, succeeding Olaf Sparre Andersen.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hsu, Katharine Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Place of birth missing (living people) American hematologists Women hematologists American women oncologists 21st-century American women physicians 21st-century American physicians Physician-scientists American women medical researchers American academic administrators American women academic administrators Stanford University alumni Weill Cornell Medical College alumni Weill Medical College of Cornell University faculty American cancer researchers People from Tuxedo, New York