Liza Makowski Hayes
Liza Makowski Hayes is an American nutritional biochemist. As a professor at the University of Tennessee, her research focuses on how metabolic stress and inflammation alters the progression of diseases, specifically obesity and cancer. Early life and education Makowski Hayes was born and raised in Florida before leaving to earn her Bachelor of Science degree in biology from Boston College. Upon graduation, she moved to California and worked for Geron Corporation, where she focused on stem cells and cancer research. During her second year with the company, Makowski Hayes returned home to assist with her ill mother before enrolling at Harvard Medical School and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Following receiving her medical degree, Makowski Hayes served a post-doctoral fellowship at Duke University's Sarah W. Stedman Center for Nutrition and Metabolism. Career Upon finishing her post-doctoral fellowship, Makowski Hayes joined the faculty in the Division of Biochemistry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) and established her lab in The Michael Hooker Research Center. The Makowski Lab studies metabolism and inflammation of white blood cells called macrophages and how that relates to obesity and cancer. Beyond cancer research, Makowski Hayes and her research laboratory also