Cathy Drennan is a Professor of Chemistry and Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Professor and Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. She studied chemistry as an undergraduate at Vassar College, received her PhD in biological chemistry from the University of Michigan, was a post-doc at the California Institute of Technology and in 1999, Drennan joined the faculty at MIT. Her lab uses X-ray crystallography and other techniques to study the structure and function of metalloproteins.
Drennan is also very involved in efforts to make chemistry education more exciting for students; perhaps due, in part, to time she spent as a high school science and drama teacher after college. Drennan helps to train graduate student teaching assistants and to develop free resources for educators. She has been recognized with several awards for excellence in undergraduate teaching, as well as outstanding research.
