Breaking Through What’s Holding You Back: Dr. Malú Gámez Tansey on Science, Academia, and Mentorship
Shattering the glass ceiling of women in science and overcoming obstacles to lead by example
Malú Gámez Tansey is a scientist, boss lady, mother, and mentor, who has done what very few people have been able to do. She’s maneuvered between the biotech sector and academia. She juggled years of postdoctoral work, completing four different post-docs, with two small children, while her husband finished his medical school residency. She endured the death of a mentor. She became a tenured professor of physiology and the director of the Center for Neurodysfunction and Inflammation at the Emory University School of Medicine. Then, she was approached by another institution, and through a multimillion dollar gift from the Fixel family, she became the first endowed chair and director of the Center for Translational Research in Neurodegenerative Disease (CTRND) at the University of Florida College of Medicine.
Tansey has shattered through glass ceilings keeping women and minorities out of careers in the life sciences, and defied the odds by attaining a leadership role in neuroscience as a woman of Hispanic descent. She’s had to work ten times as hard as her colleagues to overcome stereotypes associated…
