Professor Douglas L. Coleman

Douglas Coleman Completed his elementary and secondary school education in Stratford, after which he joined McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, where he obtained a B.Sc. in Chemistry in 1954, then attended the University of Wisconsin, where he obtained his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Biochemistry in 1956 and 1958, respectively. He served as a Research Assistant at the University of Wisconsin in 1954-1957 and as an E.I. Dupont de Nemours Fellow in 1957-1958. He joined the Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, ME, where he spent his entire career rising from an Associate Staff Scientist in 1958 to a Senior Staff Scientist in 1968. He also served as an Assistant Director for Research in 1969-1970 and an Interim Director in 1975-1976. He was also a consultant to the National Health Institutes, serving on the Metabolism Study Section in 1972-1974 and was frequently consulted on various other special study sections involving genetic diabetes, obesity, and nutrition. He also served as a Visiting Professor at the University of Geneva in 1979-1980. Upon his retirement in 1991, he was appointed a Senior Staff Scientist Emeritus at Jackson.

Following his retirement, Professor Coleman became actively interested in forest management, land protection and conservation and served ​​in the Frenchman Bay Conservatory as the Treasurer in 1993-1994, the President in 1994-1997, and the Director in 1992-1998. He was also a member of the Planning Board of the Town of Lamoine for ten years through 1993-2003. 

Professor Coleman received several prestigious awards and honors, including the Claude Bernard Medal by the European Diabetes Foundation in 1977, the Outstanding Forest Stewardship Award in 1998, the Distinguished Alumni Award in Science by McMaster University in 1999, the Gairdner International Award in 2005, the Shaw Prize in 2009, and the Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award,. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1991, and was awarded an Honorary D.Sc. from Louisiana State University in 2005 and an Honorary D.Sc. from McMaster University in 2006. He was a member of the American Association of Biological Chemists.

This biography was written in the year the prize was awarded.