Pearls of wisdom: This year’s WISDM award winner reflects on decades of research and mentorship

Colleen Jackson-Cook, Ph.D., comes from a family that she described as “always very committed to education.” Now, 50 years since she left her West Virginia home as a first-generation college student, she is the 2024 recipient of VCU’s Women in Science, Dentistry and Medicine (WISDM) Professional Achievement Award. It's the latest in a long string of accolades throughout her time in academia, and that family-instilled dedication to education remains at the forefront of her professional life.  

Presented by WISDM, a multidisciplinary program aimed to promote and further the professional goals of women in science at VCU, the Professional Achievement Award acknowledges the special contributions and accomplishments of women faculty at the School of Medicine. Nominees demonstrate excellence in mentorship, leadership, scholarship and teaching. 

"It’s very humbling,” Jackson-Cook said of receiving this year’s award. “It just makes me feel very proud that I’ve been able to accomplish things and given how many really talented people we have here, that I would be considered worthy of acknowledgement.” 

Since arriving at VCU in 1980 for the human genetics Ph.D. program, Jackson-Cook has spent much of her career doing genetic testing for patients with a range of health issues, such as leukemia and birth defects. She also studies mosaicism, a type of Down syndrome caused by a mix of cells with an extra chromosome and cells with typical chromosome makeup. She cites her long-term partnership with the International Mosaic Down Syndrome Association as what she is “most proud of from a research perspective.” Over her decades-long career, she has authored more than 100 articles and chapters for high-caliber publications and served in leadership roles for dozens of journals and societies.  

Teaching has always come naturally to Jackson-Cook, who is a professor in the Departments of Pathology, Human and Molecular Genetics and Obstetrics and Gynecology. She began tutoring as early as high school and takes pride in “seeing the lightbulbs come on” when guiding students through complex concepts. Hannah Wollenzien, Ph.D., a clinical laboratory genetics and genomics fellow and one of Jackson-Cook's many mentees, described her as “one of the clearest lecturers” she’d ever had, and said Jackson-Cook “cares that each student understands the material presented.”  

Many have shared that sentiment — Jackson-Cook is regularly voted a favorite amongst graduate and medical students, and over the years has received 28 student-selected teaching awards. Mike Grotewiel, Ph.D., associate dean for graduate education and interim chair of the Department of Human and Molecular Genetics, said it’s a running joke among instructors that they are all competing for second place: Jackson-Cook “was always ranked first” among the students. 

Having had “the incredibly good fortune” to train under influential geneticists like Walter Nance, Ph.D. and Judith Brown, Ph.D., Jackson-Cook doesn’t take her own role as a mentor lightly. She has paid it forward by mentoring more than 100 students and trainees since joining the School of Medicine faculty in 1986.  

“I love mentoring people, and I’m very proud of the fact that many of my trainees are now leaders in the field,” she said. “Perhaps the greatest compliment a teacher can receive is seeing one of their trainees exceed their capabilities, go out into the world and really accomplish their dreams.”