Maureen Hanson is a molecular/cell biologist at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. She has a B.S. from Duke University and a Ph.D. from Harvard University, where she also held an NIH postdoctoral fellowship. Her first faculty position was at the University of Virginia. Then she moved to Cornell, where she is Liberty Hyde Bailey Professor in the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics. She has served as Associate Director of the Cornell Biotechnology Program and Director of the Cornell NSF Plant Science Center, Until 2009 her research was in molecular biology of plants, especially organelle genetics and cell biology, and for this work she received her college’s Award for Outstanding Basic Research, the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Faculty Service, and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences. In 2009 she began an additional research program on Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Her initial research concerned the gut microbiome and mitochondrial genetics in Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS). In 2017 she became Director of the Center for Enervating Neuroimmune Disease, which is supported by an NIH U54 Center grant. In addition to leading her own research group, using metabolomic, proteomic, and immunological methods to identify the molecular basis of the disease, and overseeing the ME/CFS Center, she advocates for societal awareness and more research funding for the neglected post-viral illness ME/CFS.
