Suzanne Walker

Professor of Microbiology

Dr. Walker grew up in Gallup, New Mexico and received her Bachelor’s degree in English Literature from the University of Chicago. During her undergraduate studies she took a number of courses in chemistry and did research in David Lynn’s lab where she isolated and characterized a plant natural product. She received her Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from Princeton University where, under the supervision of Jay Groves and Dan Kahne, she developed a new synthetic method for glycosylation, solved the structure of a glycosylated antitumor antibiotic bound to DNA, and became interested in the roles of sugars in biology. After completing her Ph.D. she stayed at Princeton as an Instructor of Chemistry where she started a research program focused on developing chemical methods to enable study of bacterial cell wall assembly and characterization of cell wall inhibitors. This work led within a few years to a full Professorship in the Chemistry Department. In 2004, Walker moved to Harvard Medical School so she could more fully integrate her chemical methods and approaches with the biological questions that motivated their development. Walker is a member of the American Academy of Microbiology, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the National Academy of Sciences.