Awards
- Titled Professor - 2020
- Navari Family Professor
About Molly Duman Scheel
Molly Duman Scheel earned her B.S. in biological sciences from the University of Notre Dame in 1994. Upon graduation, she continued her education at the University of Chicago where she earned her Ph.D. in 1999. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Ben May Institute for Cancer Research at the University of Chicago. Scheel joined the Indiana University School of Medicine (IUSM) faculty in 2007 as an assistant professor of medical and molecular biology. She was promoted to associate professor in 2013 and full professor in 2020. She earned the additional, honorary title of Navari Family Professor in July of 2020.
In addition to serving on the IUSM faculty, Scheel has also held teaching appointments at Albion College and the University of Notre Dame. Her research primarily focuses on mosquito developmental biology in hopes of reducing the number of human deaths caused by mosquitos annually. She and her laboratory conduct in-depth analyses of mosquito developmental genetics to promote the elucidation of tools to target mosquitoes before they are disease-transmitting adults. Their research, which has primarily focused on the analysis of mosquito central and sensory nervous system development, has included the first-ever targeted genetic knockdown studies of mosquito neural development. In recent years, they have begun a large-scale effort to develop species-specific interfering RNA insecticides, a promising new tool for the biorational control of mosquitoes.
Throughout her robust teaching and research career, Scheel has been honored with numerous awards and accolades from notable organizations, including the IUSM, the National Institutes of Health, and more. In 2020, she received a Trustees Teaching Award from the IUSM to recognize her outstanding teaching practices. She is also a member of several notable professional organizations, including the American Committee on Medical Entomology, the American Mosquito Control Association, and the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, among others.