Christopher D. Lima, PhD, Chair of the Structural Biology Program at the Sloan Kettering Institute and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator was named a 2025 Honorary Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science — one of the world’s largest scientific organizations and the publisher of the Science family of journals.
Election as a Fellow is one of the highest honors in the scientific community. It recognizes members whose efforts on behalf of the advancement of science or its applications in service to society have distinguished them among their peers and colleagues.
Dr. Lima joins a 2025 class of 449 scientists, engineers and innovators spanning 24 disciplines — a cohort that will be featured in Science in April 2026 and formally celebrated at a forum in Washington, D.C., on May 29, 2026.
AAAS was founded in 1848. The Fellowship has been awarded since 1874, recognizing Fellows for their achievements across disciplines.
Dr. Lima was honored in the Biological Sciences section. His lab studies the molecular machinery that cells use to regulate and recycle proteins and RNA — work with direct implications for understanding disease at its most fundamental level.
The 2025 class joins the ranks of noted Fellows such as Katalin Karikó, a 2023 Nobel laureate in physiology or medicine for discoveries enabling the development of effective mRNA vaccines against COVID-19; Mae Jemison, the first Black woman to go to space; Steven Chu, 1997 Nobel laureate in physics who served as the 12th U.S. Secretary of Energy; Ellen Ochoa, veteran astronaut and the Johnson Space Center’s first Hispanic and second female director in its history; and Irwin M. Jacobs, electrical engineer and co-founder of Qualcomm.