Ruth Lehmann is the director of the Whitehead Institute and a world-renowned cell and developmental geneticist whose work focuses on reproduction and maternal to embryo inheritance. She has served as director since July 2020. Previously, Lehmann was the Director of the Skirball Institute of Biomolecular Medicine, the Laura and Isaac Perlmutter Professor of Cell Biology, and the Chair of the Department of Cell Biology at New York University. She is currently editor-in-chief of the Annual Review of Cell and Developmental Biology and president of the American Society for Cell Biology. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the European Molecular Biology Organization, her recent honors include the Vilcek Prize for Biomedical Sciences, the Amory Award from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Thomas Hunt Morgan Medal from the Genetics Society of America.