Mariana Federica Wolfner

Mariana Federica Wolfner is the Distinguished Professor of Molecular Biology and Genetics, and a Stephen H. Weiss Presidential Fellow at Cornell University. Her research focuses on understanding, at the molecular/gene level, the important reproductive processes that occur around the time when a sperm fertilizes an egg. Using the Drosophila model, the Wolfner laboratory studies the molecular signals that "activate" an oocyte to begin embryo development and also studies how seminal proteins modulate the reproductive physiology and behavior of female insects.

Wolfner has received awards and recognition for her research from the Genetics Society of America, the Entomological Society of America, the International Congress of Entomology Council, and awards from Cornell for her teaching and advising. She is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. She holds a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Stanford University.