Sally Kornbluth

Sally Kornbluth grew up in Fair Lawn, New Jersey. She received a BA in Political Science from Williams College (1982) and a BS in Genetics from Cambridge University, England (1984), where she was a Herchel Smith Scholar at Emmanuel College. She received her PhD from Rockefeller University in Molecular Oncology (1989) and went on to Postdoctoral training at the University of California, San Diego.

Dr. Kornbluth joined the Duke faculty in 1994. While at Duke, she has been both the James B. Duke Professor of Pharmacology and Cancer Biology at the School of Medicine and the Jo Rae Wright University Distinguished Professor. From 2006-2007, she was Vice Dean for Basic Science at the School of Medicine. In this role, she served as a liaison between the Dean’s office and the Basic Science Department Chairs and faculty, including oversight of the biomedical graduate programs in the School of Medicine, implementation of programs to support the research mission of the basic science faculty, and oversight of new and existing core laboratories.

Dr. Kornbluth was appointed Provost of Duke University in 2014, the first woman to serve in this role. Her reappointment to a second five-year term began July 1, 2019. She also serves as Chair of the Duke Kunshan University Board of Trustees and oversaw the launch of the WHU-Duke Research Institute in 2014, a collaboration of Duke and Wuhan universities.

Her research interests include the study of cell proliferation and programmed cell death, areas of central importance for understanding both carcinogenesis and degenerative disorders. She has published extensively in these areas, studying these problems in a variety of model organisms.

Dr. Kornbluth has received the following recognitions and honors:

  • Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science
  • Basic Science Research Mentoring Award (Duke School of Medicine)
  • Distinguished Faculty Award (Duke Medical Alumni Association)
  • Member, Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine