Cartwright Lecture
The Cartwright lectureship was established in the late 1870s through a bequest from Benjamin A. Cartwright of Newark, New Jersey, to the Alumni Association of the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons (VP&S). In his will, Mr. Cartwright stated that he wished to institute a course of lectures "modeled after the Lettsonian or Croonian Lectures of England"—formal occasions that featured important summaries of existing medical knowledge or, in some cases, reports of cutting-edge investigations in medicine or surgery. The lectures were given regularly from 1881 until World War I, at which time they were discontinued indefinitely.
In 1928 the VP&S Alumni Association transferred the Cartwright fund directly to the college, with the recommendation that the bequest remain untouched until the fund could accrue enough to support a lecture series of the highest quality and distinction, in keeping with what Mr. Cartwright had originally indicated and envisioned. Five decades later—and nearly a century after Mr. Cartwright's passing—this longtime goal was finally realized with the reinstatement of a new and improved lecture series in 1974.
The Cartwright Lecture series has since become a major forum for the exchange of scientific knowledge, attracting scholars, researchers, and clinicians from the world's premier medical, scientific, educational, and policymaking institutions. Past speakers and participants include top officials from the National Academy of Sciences and the National Institutes of Health, a United States senator, and numerous Nobel laureates.
Most Recent Cartwright Lecture
Past Cartwright Lecturers
2022 – Sundeep Khosla, MD, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science
2021 – David J. Skorton, MD, Association of American Medical Colleges
2020 – Salim Abdool Karim, PhD, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health
2019 – Kenneth C. Frazier, JD, Merck & Co., Inc.
2018 – Joachim Frank, PhD, Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons
2017 – Robert J. Lefkowitz, MD, Duke University Medical Center; Howard Hughes Medical Institute
2015 – Helen Hobbs, MD, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas
2014 – Richard W. Tsien, DPhil, NYU School of Medicine
2013 – Sydney Brenner, PhD, CH, FRS, Salk Institute
2012 – David D. Ho, MD, The Rockefeller University
2010 – David M. Oshinsky, PhD, University of Texas at Austin
2008 – Bert Sakmann, MD, Max-Planck Institute for Medical Research
2004 – Sir Paul Nurse, The Rockefeller University
2003 – Dr. Susumu Tonegawa, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2002 – Dr. Elaine Fuchs, University of Chicago
2001 – Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn, University of California at San Francisco
2000 – Dr. Judah Folkman, Harvard Medical School
1997 – Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, State of New York
1996 – Dr. Norman E. Shumway, Stanford University
1995 – Dr. Bruce M. Alberts, National Academy of Sciences
1993 – Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, National Institutes of Health
1992 – Dr. Joseph L. Goldstein, University of Texas, Dallas
1991 – Dr. W. French Anderson, National Institutes of Health
1990 – Dr. Daniel E. Koshland, Jr., University of California, Berkeley
1989 – Dr. David Baltimore, The Whitehead Institute
1988 – Dr. Luc Montagnier, Pasteur Institute
1987 – Dr. Michael J. Bishop, Univ. of California, San Francisco
1986 – Sir Bernard Katz, University College, London
1985 – Dr. George Palade, Yale University
1984 – Dr. Matthew Stanley Meselson, Harvard University
1983 – Dr. Arnold Relman, New England Journal of Medicine
1982 – Dr. D. Carleton Gajdusek, National Institutes of Health
1981 – Dr. Joshua Lederberg, Rockefeller University
1980 – Sir Peter Medawar, Clinical Research Center, Harrow
1979 – Dr. DeWitt Stetten, Jr., National Institutes of Health
1978 – Dr. John R. Hogness, University of Washington
1977 – Dr. George L. Engel, University of Rochester
1976 – Sir George White Pickering, Oxford University
1975 – Dr. Charles B. Huggins, University of Chicago
1974 – Dr. Paul B. Beeson, Oxford University
1916 – Prof. Richard Mills Pearce, Philadelphia
1912 – Dr. Ludwig Aschoff, Freiburg, Germany
1910 – Dr. Adolf Magnus Levy, University of Berlin
1908 – James Ewing, Cornell University
1906 – Baron Kanehiro Takaki, Surgeon General, Japanese Navy
1904 – Baron Kanehiro Takaki, Surgeon General, Japanese Navy
1902 – Dr. Richard Cabot, Boston
1900 – Prof. John G. Curtis, Columbia University
1898 – Prof. William W. Keen, Jefferson Medical College
1896 – Prof. George H. Huntington, Columbia University
1894 – Prof. Russell H. Chittenden, Yale University
1892 – Prof. Henry Fairfield Osborne, Columbia University
1890 – Dr. John S. Billings, United States Army
1888 – Prof. William H. Welch, Johns Hopkins University
1886 – Prof. William Osler, University of Pennsylvania
1884 – Prof. Burt G. Wilder, Cornell University
1883 – Prof. W.T. Belfield, Rush Medical Colleg e, Chicago
1882 – Prof. John C. Dalton, College of Physicians and Surgeons
1881 – Prof. Robert Bartholow, Jefferson Medical College
Photos from past Cartwright Lectures
CUIMC Faculty, staff and students with current CUIMC email accounts: you can access the photo album via Microsoft Office 365 OneDrive.
For Non-CUIMC affiliates: please email your request to: cumc_event_office@cumc.columbia.edu