Carlson, who joined Northwestern’s faculty last fall, will be awarded a Ph.D. degree in biochemistry from the University of Iowa during commencement ceremonies on May 17. Her dissertation is entitled “Translesion DNA synthesis by eukaryotic DNA polymerases eta and kappa.”

A 2003 graduate of Northwestern College, Carlson held biochemistry teaching assistantships at Iowa and was awarded a predoctoral fellowship from the American Heart Association in 2006. Her research on the kinetic mechanisms by which damaged DNA is replicated by specialized DNA polymerases has been published in Molecular and Cellular Biology and Proceedings of the National Academy of Science and presented at the Biocatalysis and Bioprocessing Conference.