Three Women Scientists Awarded Vilcek Foundation Prizes in Biomedical Sciences

The Vilcek Foundation, an organization dedicated to raising awareness of immigrant contributions in the United States, has awarded its 2025 Vilcek Foundation Prizes in Biomedical Sciences to four immigrant scientists in honor of their breakthrough achievements in scientific research. Three of the award recipients are women.

Marianne Bronner, the Edward B. Lewis Professor of Biology at the California Institute of Technology, has received the 2025 Vilcek Prize for her cancer research on neural crest stem cells and their role in the development of the peripheral nervous system, heart, and neural crest in vertebrate organisms. A Caltech faculty member for nearly three decades, she currently serves as director of the Beckman Institute, a multidisciplinary research center and facility for developing new technology in chemical and biological sciences. Alongside her research endeavors, she is a dedicated advocate of gender equity in science

Born in Hungary, Dr. Bronner received her bachelor’s degree in biophysics from Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, and her Ph.D. in biophysics from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

Elham Azizi, the Herbert and Florence Irving Associate Professor of Cancer Data Research and associate professor of biomedical engineering at Columbia University in New York City, has received a Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in honor of her research to derive principles of cancer initiation, progression, and response to immunotherapies in cancer patients. Her scholarship spans the fields of machine learning, statistics, genomics, and bioengineering. She has taught at the Ivy League institution for five years and holds affiliate appointments in the department of computer science and the Data Science Institute.

Dr. Azizi is a graduate of Sharif University of Technology in Iran, where she majored in electrical engineering with a minor in industrial engineering. She holds a master’s degree in electrical engineering and a Ph.D. in bioinformatics from Boston University.

Maayan Levy, assistant professor of pathology at the Stanford University School of Medicine, has received a Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise for her immunological research into the potential therapeutic applications of metabolites as vehicles to prevent and treat cancer and other diseases. She began her faculty position with Stanford this semester and conducts research with the Arc Institute, a nonprofit institute dedicated to understanding the root causes of complex diseases.

Dr. Levy earned her bachelor’s degree from Tel Aviv University in Israel and her Ph.D. in immunology from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel.