Malene Hansen, Ph.D., is Associate Dean of Student Affairs in the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Faculty Advisor for Postdoctoral Training in La Jolla, and Professor of the 'Development, Aging and Regeneration Program' and the 'Neuroscience and Aging Research Center' at Sanford Burnham Prebys. She obtained a Masters of Science in Biochemistry in 1998, and a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology in 2001 from Copenhagen University, Denmark. Dr. Hansen subsequently carried out postdoctoral studies in the laboratory of Dr. Cynthia Kenyon at the University of California, San Francisco. At the end of 2007, she started her own laboratory at SBP, where she also serves as Associate Dean for Student Affairs, and Faculty Advisor on Postdoctoral Training. Research in the Hansen lab uses the nematode C. elegans and mammalian cell cultures to elucidate the molecular mechanisms of aging with a specific focus on the cellular recycling process called autophagy. For these research efforts, she has been recognized with several awards, including an Ellison Medical Foundation New Scholar in Aging Award and a Julie Martin Mid-Career Award in Aging Research supported by the Ellison Medical Foundation and American Federation of Aging, and her lab is currently sponsored by several grants from the National Institute of Health. In addition to frequently peer-reviewing for many high-profile journals, she is also the current co-organizer of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory’s meeting on Mechanisms of Aging, and she is co-chair of the 2020 Gordon conference on Autophagy.