Nina Fedoroff

Nina Vsevolod Fedoroff (born 1942) is an American professor known for her research in life sciences and biotechnology, especially transposable elements or jumping genes and plant stress response. In 2007, President George W. Bush awarded her the National Medal of Science in the field of Biological Sciences, the highest award for lifetime achievement in scientific research in the United States. Fedoroff was elected President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), a position she held from 2011 to 2012. She is a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the European Academy of Sciences, and the American Academy of Microbiology.

Fedoroff arrived at Pennsylvania State University in 1995 as the Verne M. Willaman professor of Life Sciences and founded and directed the organization now known as the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences. In 2002, she was appointed an Evan Pugh professor, the university's highest academic honor. In 2013 Federoff was a Distinguished Visiting Professor at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), and a member of the external faculty of the Santa Fe Institute.

Fedoroff has been honored with the Howard Taylor Ricketts Award from University of Chicago in 1990, and in 1992 she received the New York Academy of Sciences Outstanding Contemporary Women Scientist Award. In 1997, Fedoroff received the John P. McGovern Science and Society Medal from Sigma Xi. She was awarded in 2003 Syracuse University's George Arents Pioneer medal.

President Bill Clinton appointed Fedoroff to the National Science Board, which oversees the National Science Foundation, in 2001. The foundation administers the science awards, established by the United States Congress in 1959. Fedoroff was Science and Technology Adviser to U.S. Secretaries of State, Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton and to the administrator Rajiv Shah for the United States Agency for International Development from 2007 to 2010.