Mariel Vazquez, who earned her Ph.D. in mathematics from FSU in Fall 2000, has been awarded a CAREER Award by the National Science Foundation (NSF). The award recognizes her research applying pure math to the study of how DNA tangles as it packs into living cells.

Mariel Vazquez

“When DNA is packed into a cell it doesn’t look like the straight double helix that we see in textbook pictures,” Vazquez says. “In order to fit into the cell, the double helix is twisted and coiled around itself and around proteins.”

The award provides Vazquez with $600,000 to continue her work. She is currently working with researchers at Oxford University, using computer simulations to study an enzyme that disentangles DNA in the E. coli bacterium. Vazquez is a specialist in DNA topology, a specialty she learned while working under Professor DeWitt Sumners of FSU’s mathematics department. Sumners is recognized as one of the most important researchers in the field.

Vazquez is an associate professor at San Francisco State University, where she has worked since 2005.