Dr. Mandë Holford is a professor of chemistry at CUNY Hunter College and The CUNY Graduate Center, with scientific appointments at the American Museum of Natural History and Weill Cornell Medicine. Her joint appointments reflect her interdisciplinary research.

Dr. Holford’s research focus is chemical and biological diversity, specifically, investigating venom and venomous organisms as agents of change and innovation in evolution and for therapeutic development in pain and cancer.

She is actively involved in science education, advancing the public understanding of science and science diplomacy. She has received several awards including being named a 2020 Sustainability Pioneer and a 2015 New Champion Young Scientist by the World Economic Forum, and a California Academy of Sciences Fellow. She also received the prestigious Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award, an NSF CAREER Award, and was honored as a Breakthrough Women in Science by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) and NPR’s Science Friday. She is cofounder of KillerSnails.com, an award winning EdTech company that uses gaming as a conduit to advance scientific learning in K-12 classrooms. Dr. Holford is a life member on the Council of Foreign Relations and an AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellow.