Claudia Morgan, PhD
Claudia Morgan, PhDAssociate Director
Claudia Morgan brings to the Office of Diversity & Leadership years of professional and personal experience that qualify her uniquely to help train Stanford's leaders of tomorrow.
Claudia was born in Niagara Falls, NY and grew up all over the East Coast. She earned an undergraduate degree in chemistry from Grinnell College in Iowa and a PhD in biochemistry at Washington University in St. Louis. Her research focused on cellular processes regulated by polypeptides, including inflammation, wound healing and solid organ transplant rejection. She worked as a post-doctoral fellow at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and at Cornell University Medical College, both in New York City. She has held positions at Vanderbilt, Ohio State and Tulane Universities.
In 1997, when her daughter was in third grade, Claudia left academic science to spend more time supporting her family. Her family moved to California and Claudia began her second career running a non-profit organization devoted to the arts. After six years leading the Pacific Art League in Palo Alto, Claudia joined ODL. "I missed the academic environment. I wanted to work as part of a team on something that I felt mattered," she says.
As associate director of ODL, Claudia is able to put her experience to work helping others facing the challenges of rising through the ranks of academia. In addition to numerous relocations, she has worked to balance a two-academic-career family and her passions for both art and science, as well as to remain committed to volunteerism. She lives in Cupertino where she enjoys cooking, reading, gardening, playing tennis and, her most "serious hobby," drawing and painting.