Brenda Schulman is a department director at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry. She trained with Peter Kim, Chris Dobson, Ed Harlow and Nikola Pavletich, who fueled her interest in protein homeostatis. She was previously an HHMI Investigator at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, where she retains an adjunct faculty position. Her awards include the Leibniz Prize and Ernst Jung Prize in Medicine, and she is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences, EMBO and Leopoldina.