Sarah A. Woodson

Sarah Woodson is the T.C. Jenkins Professor of Biophysics at Johns Hopkins University. Her research group studies how RNA molecules fold into specific three-dimensional structures, and how the RNA and proteins components of cellular complexes such as the ribosome come together. In addition to biophysical methods such as X-ray scattering and single-molecule fluorescence, her group has pioneered the application of X-ray hydroxyl radical footprinting to RNA.

Woodson received a Pew Scholar Award in the Biomedical Sciences in 1993, a Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award in 1995, was elected an American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellow in 2010, and the President of the RNA Society (2016-2017).

She received her Ph.D. in Biophysical Chemistry in 1987 with Donald Crothers at Yale University, and did postdoctoral research in the laboratory of Thomas Cech at the University of Colorado Boulder from 1987-1990.