Gabriela Schlau-Cohen

Gabriela S. Schlau-Cohen is a Thomas D. and Virginia W. Cabot Career Development Associate Professor at MIT in the Department of Chemistry.

Education and career
Schlau-Cohen received a BS with honors in chemical physics from Brown University in 2003. She completed her PhD in chemistry in 2011 at the University of California, Berkeley, where she worked with Professor Graham R. Fleming as an American Association of University Women (AAUW) fellow. From 2011 to 2014, Schlau-Cohen was a Center for Molecular Analysis and Design (CMAD) postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University. She worked with Professor W.E. Moerner and Professor Ed Solomon on oxidative enzyme mechanisms, employing “time-dependent, single-molecule spectroscopy and steady-state ensemble measurements to study the kinetics of electron transfer in Fet3p, the MCO [ multi-copper oxidase ] responsible for iron uptake in yeast.”

In 2015, Schlau-Cohen joined the faculty of MIT as an assistant professor and was promoted to associate professor on July 1, 2020. Her research group at MIT, also known as the Schlau-Cohen Lab, is at the intersection of physical and biological chemistry. The lab focuses on using “a combination of single-molecule and ultrafast spectroscopies to explore the energetic and structural dynamics of biological systems.” Schlau-Cohen’s team works to “develop and apply tools to uncover the conformational and photophysical mechanisms of photosynthetic light harvesting and its regulation.”

Schlau-Cohen has served as associate director of the Bioinspired Light Escalated Chemistry Energy Frontier Research Center (BioLEC EFRC), a member of the Executive Committee of the APS Division of Laser Science, and as a STEM ambassador for the American Association of University Women.

Awards and honors

 * 2024 - Benjamin Franklin Medal
 * 2020 – The Journal of Physical Chemistry and PHYS Division Lectureship Award
 * 2020 – Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award
 * 2020 – James L. Kinsey Memorial Lecturer at Rice University
 * 2018 – Scialog Fellow for Chemical Machinery of the Cell
 * 2018 – CIFAR Bio-inspired Solar Energy Fellow
 * 2018 – Sloan Research Fellow in Chemistry
 * 2017 – NIH Director’s New Innovator Award
 * 2016 – CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholar
 * 2016 – Beckman Young Investigator
 * 2015 – Smith Family Award for Excellence in Biomedical Research
 * 2013 – Postdoctoral Research Award, ACS PHYS Division
 * 2010–2011 – American Fellowship, American Association of University Women
 * 2007 – Abramson Graduate Scholarship, University of California, Berkeley
 * 1999 – Esther Poncz Memorial Scholarship, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia