National Cell Biology Award Named After Mount Sinai Health System Faculty Member
American Society for Cell Biology Honors Sandra K. Masur, PhD, as the Namesake for Senior Leadership in Cell Biology Honor
The American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) has established a national award named for Sandra K. Masur, PhD, Professor of Ophthalmology, Mount Sinai Health System. The award honors individuals with a distinguished research career in cell biology and outstanding leadership in mentoring.
The Sandra K. Masur Senior Leadership Award, (previously the Women in Cell Biology (WICB) Senior Leadership Award) will honor “a woman or man at a later career stage (generally full professor or equivalent) whose outstanding scientific achievements are coupled with a record of active leadership in mentoring both men and women in scientific careers.” It will join four other named ASCB awards and is the first named for a woman.
“Dr. Masur has been a prolific researcher throughout her career and has provided guidance and mentorship for many junior researchers especially women and the underrepresented in developing their careers in cell biology and vision research,” said James C. Tsai, MD, MBA, Chair, Department of Ophthalmology at the Health System, and President of New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai. “Winning a lifetime achievement award is impressive - but getting the lifetime achievement award named after you is another level entirely."
Dr. Masur earned her B.A. in Biology and Aesthetics at the City College of New York (CCNY) and her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Cell Biology at Columbia University. She has held academic appointments at CCNY and Columbia University and as visiting Professor at the University of Iowa, EMBL in Heidelberg, Germany and Centre D’Etudes Nucleaires, Saclay, France.
She joined the Department of Physiology and Biophysics at Mount Sinai in 1968. Her research program today employs a corneal stroma model to study the interconnections between extracellular matrix, cell-cell interaction, and growth factors in wound healing. At the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai(ISSM), Dr. Masur was Associate Dean for Faculty Development and currently is the founding Director of ISMMS’s Office for Women’s Careers.
Dr. Masur has served on the governing council of the ASCB and as President of the New York Society of Experimental Microscopy. She has been the chair of ASCB’s WICB since 2009. She was co-director of the National Eye Institute’s “Fundamental Issues in Vision Research” at the Marine Biology Lab.
In announcing the naming of the award, ASCB Executive Director Stefano Bertuzzi said, “Dr. Masur’s dedication to WICB and to ASCB has been an exemplar of leadership and volunteer engagement in our Society, which truly helped move the needle in changing social norms and in particular in creating opportunities for women in science.”
About the Mount Sinai Health System
Mount Sinai Health System is one of the nation’s leading integrated academic health systems and one of the largest in the New York metropolitan area. Its comprehensive system includes seven hospitals, more than 400 outpatient practices, over 600 research and clinical laboratories, the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, and the Mount Sinai Phillips School of Nursing. Together, the Health System comprises approximately 48,000 employees, more than 9,000 physicians, and 8,600 nurses.
As a leading learning health system, Mount Sinai combines clinical expertise with scientific discovery to improve patient care while training the next generation of health care and biomedical leaders. The Health System provides care across every stage of life, from prenatal care through geriatrics, while advancing personalized medicine through artificial intelligence, data science, and biomedical research.
Mount Sinai is consistently recognized among the nation’s leading academic health systems for patient care, research, and education. The Mount Sinai Hospital is ranked No. 1 in New York by Newsweek® and No. 7 in the U.S. on the magazine’s World’s Best Hospitals 2026 list. The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai ranks No. 9 among U.S. medical schools and No. 1 among freestanding medical schools for National Institutes of Health grant funding, reflecting the strength of its scientific enterprise and leadership in biomedical research.
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