Allison focuses on thyroid hormone receptors and equity

When Lizabeth Ann Allison was the biology department chair at William & Mary, she recruited Shantá Hinton as the college’s first minority tenure-track-eligible scientist. Almost a decade later and now a tenured professor, Hinton remembers Allison’s words to her then: “You are scientifically strong, emotionally strong, and I know that you are capable of handling this.”

Lizabeth Ann Allison

Allison, now a chancellor professor of biology at W&M, will receive the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology’s 2020/2021 Ruth Kirschstein Diversity in Science Award. Hinton nominated her for the honor, writing, “She has truly been a trailblazer in serving and changing the dynamics of our institution, and encouraging underrepresented minorities to continue to pursue scientific careers, by supporting our passion for science.”

Allison’s support for diversity stems partially from her own experience in the 1980s when few women were high ranking academic scientists. Without female role models, it was her male predoctoral research mentors who “saw a potential in me that I didn’t know I had,” she said.

She explored many interests as an undergraduate at the University of Alaska, but when those mentors told her she needed to earn a Ph.D. and become a faculty member, science won out over creative writing and theater.

She was the first woman to chair the biology department at W&M; during her tenure, the percentage of underrepresented minority students graduating in biology and neuroscience more than doubled.

Allison has a keen eye for untapped potential. “In my lab, there are some students that would have succeeded in any lab,” she said, “and then there are those students that need just a little bit of extra encouragement to show their true potential; those are the students that most benefit from my mentorship.”