Shirley M. Tilghman

Shirley Tilghman OC FRS
Tilghman in 2006
19th President of Princeton University
In office June 15, 2001 – July 1, 2013
Preceded by	Harold Tafler Shapiro
Succeeded by	Christopher L. Eisgruber
Personal details
Born	Shirley Marie Caldwell (1946-09-17) 17 September 1946 (age 77) Toronto, Canada
Spouse	Joseph Tilghman (1970–1983)
Children	2
Education	Queen's University (BS) Temple University (MS, PhD)
Scientific career
Fields	Molecular biology
Institutions	Princeton University
Thesis	The hormonal regulation of phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase (1975)
Doctoral advisor	Richard W. Hanson

Shirley Marie Tilghman, OC FRS (/ˈtɪlmən/; née Caldwell; born 17 September 1946) is a Canadian scholar in molecular biology and an academic administrator. She is now a professor of molecular biology and public policy and president emerita of Princeton University. In 2002, Discover magazine recognized her as one of the 50 most important women in science.^[1]

Tilghman was the 19th president of Princeton University; she was the first woman to hold the position and the second female president in the Ivy League.^[2] Tilghman was also the first biologist to hold the Princeton presidency. She is the fifth foreign-born president of Princeton, and the second academic born in Canada to be elected to the position.

A leader in the field of molecular biology, Tilghman was a member of the Princeton faculty for fifteen years before being named president. She has returned to the Princeton faculty as a professor of molecular biology. In that capacity, she has returned to the Lewis-Sigler Institute of Integrative Genomics as a faculty member;^[3] while she is not currently engaged in research, Tilghman actively advises undergraduates in their independent research, including the senior thesis for seniors.^[4]

Tilghman also continues to hold leadership positions in the global scientific community. She was the 2015 president of the American Society for Cell Biology.