Caroline Kane, Ph.D. '79
Biochemist and Professor, University of California, Berkeley

Excellence in Service

Caroline Kane is a nationally-known biochemist who is currently studying gene expression, transcription elongation, and genome replication.  Her work is helping lead the big wave of bioscience, biotech and genomic breakthroughs expected at UC Berkeley in the next decade.  Kane’s academics are impeccable and impressive.  She received a B.S. in Zoology at Ohio University and an M.S. in Genetics at North Carolina State.  With more than 30 years of laboratory and classroom teaching, research, and mentoring, Kane is responsible for launching the careers of many Cal graduate students.  She has authored hundreds of presentations, papers, and lectures, and is in demand as an ad hoc scientific reviewer for numerous organizations and journals.

Kane’s interests extend beyond her own lab and classroom.  She is heavily involved in spring yield activities, CalSO, and the MESA, EAOP and UCLEADS programs.  In 1999 she co-founded the Biology Transfer Consortium to encourage community college students pursuing science.  She has worked tirelessly throughout her career to increase to increase diversity in higher education, and she leads the fight against gender and ethnicity stereotyping at ail levels.  In 1991, she helped petition the Howard Hughes Medical Institute for funds to start the Biology Scholars Program, which helps severely disadvantaged students achieve educational parity in the rigorous biology major.  She is the founding member of the Coalition for Excellence and Diversity in Math, Science and Engineering, which recently won the Presidential Award.  She has written extensively on affirmative action, standardized testing and the reasons women leave science.  She has served on or chaired committees on and off campus including the Academic Senate Committee on Student Diversity and Academic Development, the Graduate Affirmative Action Advisory Committee, and the NIH Advisory Council for Research on Minority Health. 

Personal Statement
I am extremely humbled to have been selected for this award.  Helping other people is what we all SHOULD enjoy doing, and I do enjoy helping others move as successfully as possible in their efforts.  Most of what I do is so very small that receiving this award has me reflecting on those whose impacts have been so very significant.

When I arrived at Cal as an incoming graduate student, I was immediately taken by the diverse nature of the student body and the diverse opinions voiced on campus on many issues.  It seemed that students and faculty in particular felt comfortable voicing opinions and in sharing those opinions, even in disagreement, with each other.  That is also the nature of science; disagreement and discussion about alternative interpretations of the way the world works helps us inch closer and closer to the explanation for the things we see and experience in the world around us.

I also was delighted in the energy and enthusiasm of the undergraduates for whom I was a TA.  They loved to challenge ideas, in science and outside of science, and the stimulation in working with them was a real battery charger.  In graduate school, you need your batteries charged on a daily basis to enable you to work through the tough times.  In addition to having my batteries charged, I enjoyed the process of education and watching the students come to understanding and develop the ability to piece together seemingly disconnected pieces of information…a necessity in any critical thinking.

The vibrancy of Cal made me feel especially fortunate to return here for my professional career, and I have not been disappointed.