Rate My Professor Laura Katz

Laura A. Katz is the Elsie Damon Simonds Professor of Biological Sciences at Smith College. She holds an A.B. from Harvard College and a Ph.D. in Ecology and Systematics from Cornell University, earned in 1996. Throughout her career at Smith College, Katz has focused her research on elucidating principles of eukaryotic evolution through phylogenetic reconstruction, community sampling, and analyses of genome evolution. The bulk of eukaryotic diversity resides in microbial lineages, with plants, animals, and fungi comprising only three of approximately 60–200 eukaryotic lineages. Her lab's current projects emphasize assembling the eukaryotic tree of life using analyses of eukaryotic microbes, phylogeography of coastal choreotrich and oligotrich ciliates, molecular systematics of ciliates, and genome evolution in ciliates. Katz has authored or co-authored over 400 publications, amassing more than 9,475 citations as documented on ResearchGate and Google Scholar. Notable contributions include highly cited papers such as 'Estimating the Timing of Early Eukaryotic Diversification with Multigene Molecular Clocks' (Parfrey et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2011, cited over 1,000 times), 'Broadly Sampled Multigene Analyses Yield a Well-Resolved Eukaryotic Tree of Life' (Parfrey et al., Molecular Biology and Evolution, 2010, cited 267 times), 'The Dynamic Nature of Eukaryotic Genomes' (Parfrey and Katz, Molecular Biology and Evolution, 2008, cited 193 times), and 'Phylogenomics Places Orphan Protistan Lineages in a Novel Eukaryotic Superphylum' (Brown et al., Genome Biology and Evolution, 2018, cited 168 times).

Katz's impact extends beyond research through distinguished teaching and mentorship. She received the Kathleen Compton Sherrerd ’54 and John J. F. Sherrerd Prize for Distinguished Teaching at Smith College in 2017, recognizing her exceptional contributions to undergraduate education. Additional honors include the Gayley Fellowship from Smith College in 2007 and an NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship from 1996 to 1998. As lead investigator, she has secured significant funding, including a multi-million-dollar NSF grant in 2004 for protist research collaborative efforts. Katz has served as a reviewer for the HHMI Undergraduate Education Panel and contributed to initiatives promoting inclusive excellence for underrepresented women in science at Smith College. Her work continues to shape understanding of microbial eukaryote diversity and evolution, influencing phylogenomics and protistology fields through extensive publications, grants, and academic service.