Tuuli Lappalainen, PhD, was honored with the Lamport Research faculty award at the 2019 Commencement ceremony. Dr. Lappalainen is pictured here with Columbia University Trustee Andrew Barth (left) and Dean Lee Goldman of Columbia University Irving Medical Center. (Courtesy of CUIMC Communications)

Tuuli Lappalainen , PhD, assistant professor of systems biology at Columbia University and core faculty member at the New York Genome Center (NYGC) , has received the Harold and Golden Lamport Research award, presented on May 22 at the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons Commencement Ceremony. 

The Lamport Research award is an annual prize given to junior faculty members that show promise in basic science or clinical science research. This year it recognizes Dr. Lappalainen’s ongoing research in functional genetic variation in human populations, and her work in elucidating the cellular mechanisms linked to genetic risk for various diseases and traits. Dr. Lappalainen and her lab combine computational analysis of high-throughput sequencing data, human population genetics approaches and experimental work. 

Her group at NYGC and Columbia is highly collaborative and has made important contributions to several international research consortia in human genomics, including the Genotype Tissue Expression (GTEx) Project and the TOPMed Consortium. 

Dr. Lappalainen joined the faculty at Columbia University in 2014 as part of the Department of Systems Biology and NYGC. In 2018, she received the annual Leena Peltonen Prize for Excellence in Human Genetics, which was presented to her in Milan, Italy, at the 52nd European Society of Human Genetics meeting. 

The Lamport Research award is administered by the Office of the Dean at Columbia University Irving Medical Center , and is one of five distinguished faculty awards bestowed yearly. From the Department of Systems Biology, recent recipients have included Drs. Raul Rabadan (2014) and Harris Wang (2017).

-Melanie A. Farmer