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Roberta F. Colman

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Roberta F. Colman
A smiling white woman with dark hair.
Roberta F. Colman, from a 1964 newspaper.
Born
Roberta Fishman

1938
New York, USA
DiedAugust 15, 2019
Media, Pennsylvania, USA
Occupation(s)Biochemist, college professor
Employer(s)Washington University in St. Louis
University of Delaware

Roberta F. Colman (1938 – August 15, 2019), born Roberta Fishman, was an American biochemist.

Early life

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Roberta Fishman was from New York City, the daughter of William and Esther Fishman of Brooklyn.[1] As a student at Forest Hills High School in 1955, she received a Westinghouse Science Talent Search Award,[2] and met president Dwight D. Eisenhower.[3] Colman earned her bachelor's degree at Radcliffe College in 1959,[4] and completed doctoral studies at Harvard University in 1962, with Frank Westheimer as her advisor. She held post-doctoral fellowships at the National Institutes of Health and the Washington University School of Medicine.[5]

Career

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In 1966, she joined the faculty at the Washington University School of Medicine, where she had carried out postdoctoral research.[5] From 1967 to 1973, Colman was a professor at Harvard Medical School, beginning as an assistant professor and later being promoted to associate professor.[5] She joined the faculty at the University of Delaware in 1973, the first female biochemist to hold a faculty position there. She was the Willis F. Harrington Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry, and director of the Chemistry-Biology Interface Graduate Program.[5] She was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in 1988.[6] In 1988, Colman represented the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB), when testified at a Senate budget hearing in support of increased funding for the National Science Foundation.[7]

Colman's research involved "the effects of chemical modifications on enzymes".[8] She held research grants from the National Science Foundation,[9] the American Cancer Society[10] and the National Institutes of Health,[11][12] and wrote or co-wrote over 260 published scholarly articles.[13] She served on the editorial boards of the Journal of Biological Chemistry, Protein Expression and Purification, and Protein Science, and was editor-in-chief of Archives of Biochemistry and Biophysics from 1984 to 2001. She retired from the University of Delaware in 2009.[13]

Among her biochemistry graduate students at Delaware was Siddhartha Roy.[14]

Personal life

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During college, Roberta Fishman married Robert W. Colman, a medical student, who had also won a Westinghouse Science Talent Search Award in the 1950s.[2] They had two children. Robert Colman became a professor of medicine at Temple University.[15] Roberta F. Colman died in 2019, in Media, Pennsylvania, aged 81 years.[13][16]

References

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  1. ^ "Roberta Fishman from Assembly District 18 Brooklyn". 1940 Census District 24-2129B. Retrieved 2020-01-18.
  2. ^ a b "Junior Geniuses". Daily News. 1964-03-08. p. 515. Retrieved 2020-01-18 – via Newspapers.com.
  3. ^ Society for Science & the Public (2010-09-09), STS 1955 Finalists Carol MacKay (Myers) and Roberta Colman (Fishman) with President Dwight D. Eisenhower, retrieved 2020-01-17
  4. ^ "215 Receive Degrees at Radcliffe Exercise". The Boston Globe. 1959-06-11. p. 15. Retrieved 2020-01-18 – via Newspapers.com.
  5. ^ a b c d White, Harold B.; Voet, Judith G. (December 1, 2019). "Roberta F. Colman (1938 – 2019)". ASBMB Today. Retrieved 2020-01-17.
  6. ^ "AAAS Members Elected as Fellows on 15 February 1988". Science. 240 (4853): 810–811. 1988. Bibcode:1988Sci...240..810.. doi:10.1126/science.240.4853.810. ISSN 0036-8075. JSTOR 1701569.
  7. ^ Department of Housing and Urban Development and Certain Independent Agencies Appropriations for Fiscal Year 1989: Nondepartmental witnesses. U.S. Government Printing Office. 1988. pp. 1322–1328.
  8. ^ Exton, John H. (2013-03-15). Crucible of Science: The Story of the Cori Laboratory. Oxford University Press. pp. 198–199. ISBN 978-0-19-986108-8.
  9. ^ Roberta F. Colman, principal investigator, "Affinity Labeling of Purine Nucleotide Sites in Proteins" (1981-1983), National Science Foundation Award Abstract #8021572.
  10. ^ "Dr. Colman Awarded Cancer Research Grant". The News Journal. 1976-08-30. p. 20. Retrieved 2020-01-18 – via Newspapers.com.
  11. ^ Colman, Roberta (1986). "Glutamate Dehydrogenase: Function of Molecular Topology". National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK).
  12. ^ Colman, Roberta (2002). "Adenylosuccinate Lyase: Novel Intersubunit Active Sites". National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK).
  13. ^ a b c White, Hal (August 21, 2019). "In Memoriam: Roberta Colman". UDaily. Retrieved 2020-01-16.
  14. ^ "Siddhartha Roy". Indian National Science Academy: Indian Fellow Detail. Retrieved 2020-01-18.
  15. ^ Dias, Robert E. (January 27, 1987). "Dr. Robert W. Colman; Temple History in Photographs". Temple Digital Collections. Retrieved 2020-01-18.
  16. ^ Wang, Linda. "Obituary: Roberta F. Colman". Chemical & Engineering News. Retrieved 2020-01-17.
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