The Willison Lectureship

In May of 1988, Frances Willison Bishop, Ph.D, established the "Dr. Clayton Willison and Emma Elizabeth Willison Fund" in memory of her parents, as a trust with the University of Michigan. The purpose of the fund is to "benefit the Department of Microbiology and Immunology for research in the cause, prevention, and control of disease and for honorariums for one guest lecture each year in the field of microbiology and immunology, which lectures shall be known as the Willison Lectureship."

Dr. Bishop was born in 1898, and received her B.A. degree from the University of Michigan, School of Literature, Science, and the Arts in 1921. She received her Ph.D degree from the University of Michigan Department of Microbiology in 1942. The title of her dissertation was "The Effect Produced In Vitro by Vitamin C on the Toxic and Antigenic Properties of Diphtheria Toxin". Dr. Bishop taught for 16 years at the University of Oklahoma. She passed away at the age of 95 in July of 1993.

Willison Lectures

1995-1996
James E. Darnell, Jr.
Rockefeller University

1996-1997
Jonathan Beckwith
Harvard University

1997-1998
Timothy A. Springer
Harvard Medical School

1998-1999
Hidde Ploegh
Harvard Medical School

1999-2000
Charles A. Janeway, Jr.
Yale University Medical School

2000-2001
R. John Collier
Harvard Medical School

2001-2002
Ralph M. Steinman
Rockefeller University

2002-2003
Pamela J. Bjorkman
California Institute of Technology

2003-2004
Daniel A. Portnoy
University of California, Berkeley

2004-2005
Martin Gellert
National Institutes of Health

2005-2006
Bonnie Bassler
Princeton University

2006-2007
Laurie Glimcher
Harvard University

2007-2008
Carl Nathan
Weill Medical College

2008-2009
Ron Germain
National Institute of Allergy and Infectous Diseases, NIH

2009-2010
Rulsan Medzhitov
Yale University

2010-2011
Jorge E. Galan, Ph.D
Yale University

2011-2012
Mark J. Shlomchik, Ph.D
Yale University

2012-2013
John Boothroyd, Ph.D
Stanford School of Medicine

2014-2015
Jenny Ting, Ph.D
University of North Carolina School of Medicine

2015-2016
Jeffrey Weiser, Ph.D.
New York University-Langone Medical Center

2016-2017
Diane Mathis, Ph.D.
Harvard Medical School

2017-2018
Ajit Varki. Ph.D.
University of California-San Diego

2018-2019
Yasmine Belkaid, Ph.D.
NIH - NIAID

2021-2022
Kate A. Fitzgerald, Ph.D.
University of Massachusetts Medical School

2022-2023
Raif Geha
Harvard University