Martha Oakley

Martha Oakley is a Professor in the Department of Chemistry at Indiana University Bloomington. Her research focuses on chemical biology, protein structure, and molecular interactions. She holds a B.A. in Chemistry from Carleton College (1986), a Rhodes Scholarship for biochemistry studies at Oxford University (1986–1988), and a Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology under Peter B. Dervan. Postdoctoral work at MIT with Peter S. Kim explored coiled-coil specificity. Her lab investigates coiled-coil proteins, notably bacterial SMC proteins like E. coli condensin MukB. Key contributions include mapping MukB’s coiled-coil domains, solving its hinge domain structure with James Berger’s lab at UC Berkeley, and discovering ParC’s role as a MukB binding partner (PNAS, 2010).

• Education:
• B.A., Chemistry, Carleton College (1986)
• Rhodes Scholar, Oxford University (Biochemistry, 1986–1988)
• Ph.D., California Institute of Technology (1993)

Research themes include protein-lipid interactions, antiparallel coiled-coil design, and SMC proteins’ roles in chromosome organization. Her work bridges biochemistry and structural biology, with implications for understanding cellular processes across organisms.