INTERNATIONAL SPEAKER

Dr. Sil received an undergraduate degree in Biochemistry from Harvard and a PhD and MD from the University of California San Francisco (UCSF). She is Professor and Chair of the Department of Microbiology & Immunology at UCSF where she studies thermally dimorphic fungal pathogens. The long-term goal of her research is to determine how environmental signals such as temperature regulate morphology and virulence in the fungal pathogens Histoplasma and Coccidioides. These organisms sense host temperature to switch from a soil form to a parasitic form that bypasses the anti-microbial strategies of macrophages. Dr. Sil is a member of the American Academy of Microbiology and was awarded a Burroughs Wellcome New Investigator Award, an Ellison New Scholar Award, an Early Career Scientist Award from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and the 2021 Rhoda Benham Lifetime Achievement Award in Medical Mycology from the Medical Mycology Society of America.