Pamela Bjorkman

Bjorkman grew up in Parkrose, a neighborhood in Portland, Oregon. She became interested in science in high school and attended Willamette University for one year before transferring to the University of Oregon, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in chemistry. As an undergraduate student, Bjorkman completed lab work with Larry Church at Reed College and O. Hayes Griffith at the University of Oregon. first at 3.5Å resolution (PDB entry 1HLA) and then refined at 2.6Å (PDB entry 3HLA). == Career and Research ==

Bjorkman continued her postdoctoral research at Stanford University in Mark Davis’ laboratory, studying the T-cell receptors that recognize antigens presented in the binding groove of MHC proteins. They developed a model explaining how this recognition mechanism works. Bjorkman and Zinn have two children. In 1989, Bjorkman joined the Biology faculty at the California Institute of Technology as an assistant professor. She earned tenure as an associate professor in 1995 and was promoted to full professor in 1998. She was an HHMI investigator from 1989 to 2015. She became the David Baltimore Professor of Biology and Biological Engineering in 2018 and Merkin Institute professor in 2021. == Awards ==

• 1989 Pew Scholar in the Biomedical Sciences by the Pew Charitable Trusts • 1993 Cancer Research Institute William B. Coley Award • 1994 Gairdner Foundation International Award (jointly with Don Wiley) • 1994 James R. Klinenberg Science Award from the Arthritis Foundation • 1996 AAI-PharMingen Investigator Award • 1996 Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize • 1997 Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences • 1997 James R. Klinenberg Science Award from the Arthritis Foundation • 2002 • 2002 Member of the American Philosophical Society • 2004 Rose Payne Distinguished Scientist Award • 2006 L'Oreal-UNESCO Women in Science • 2010 National Institute of Health Director's Pioneer Award • 2021 Greengard Prize • 2025 Wolf Prize in Medicine ==References==