Gamble–George, Garneau–Tsodikova represented in statuary form

People strolling through the garden of a luxury mall in Dallas between May and October this year may have been surprised to encounter a party of lifesize, bright orange statues of living women in science on its lawn.

The statues were 3D printed representations of the 125 ambassadors of the IF/THEN project, sponsored by Texas philanthropist and business owner Lyda Hill in partnership with the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 500 Women in STEM and other groups.

IF/THEN aims to increase representation of women in the sciences, technology, engineering and medicine. Two of the statues honor IF/THEN ambassadors who also are members of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology: Joyonna Gamble–George and Sylvie Garneau–Tsodikova.

IF/THEN Collection

Joyonna Gamble–George was a premed biochemistry major at Xavier University of Louisiana, earned a master's in health administration from the University of South Florida and then earned her Ph.D. in neuroscience at Vanderbilt University. She's now a postdoc at New York University.

Sylvie Garneau–Tsodikova attended Université Laval in Québec for her undergraduate and master's degrees in chemistry and the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, for her Ph.D. in chemistry. She was a postdoctoral researcher in Christopher T. Walsh's lab at Harvard Medical School before joining the University of Michigan as an assistant professor and later the University of Kentucky as an associate professor.

Gamble–George is a postdoctoral researcher at New York University's nursing college. She earned her Ph.D. in neuroscience at Vanderbilt University in 2016, studying stress signaling, and pursued postdoctoral research in neuroscience at the University of Florida before accepting a AAAS science and technology policy fellowship based at the National Institutes of Health.

She has been at NYU since 2020, studying behavioral health, and recently published on how the pandemic has affected drinking behavior among New Yorkers. Gamble–George also is the co-founder and chief scientific officer of a Florida-based biotechnology company developing wearable technologies that aim to use artificial intelligence to predict events such as heart attacks before they occur.

Garneau–Tsodikova is a professor of pharmaceutical sciences and assistant vice president for research at the University of Kentucky. Her lab studies the biosynthesis of polyketides and other nonribosomal peptides, which can be used as anticancer and antibacterial agents. She also is interested in developing new antimicrobial agents that can overcome resistance in bacteria and fungi.

Garneau–Tsodikova earned her Ph.D. at the University of Alberta and pursued postdoctoral research at Harvard Medical School. Before joining the faculty at the University of Kentucky, she was an assistant professor at the University of Michigan. Her work was recently featured on CBS Mission Unstoppable.

You can take a virtual tour of the IF/THEN exhibit here.