25 years of Constructors: Dr. Binyam Mogessie - the Scientist

In honor of Constructor University's 25th anniversary, we're featuring one alum from every graduating class so far to showcase the diversity, values and impact that Constructor graduates have carried into the world. Check out our previous features:

• Class of 2004: Aakash Jain
• Class of 2005: Neil D’Souza.
• Class of 2006: Joanna Bagniewska

This week, from the Class of 2007, we are featuring Dr. Binyam Mogessie, an award-winning scientist and Professor of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, and Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences at Yale University.

Quick Facts:

• Graduation Year: 2007
• Major: Biochemistry and Cell Biology
• College: Mercator
• Biggest adjustment coming to Germany: People not saying hello to strangers on the street.  
• Defining societal moment: The launch of Facebook.  
• One professor I'd like to buy a beer: Professor Sebastian Springer.
• A course that still gives me nightmares: European history.  
• My proudest moment: Passing European History!

Dr. Binyam Mogessie spent much of his childhood hanging about his father’s microbiology lab with his brother, on the college campus near Addis Ababa, Ethiopia where they grew up. Now, as a Principal Investigator of his own lab at Yale Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Dr. Mogessie’s research is helping to advance the frontiers of human reproductive and fertility science.

It’s a poetic full-circle moment made possible by the courage and persistence with which he carved his path in academia, from the initial decision to leave Ethiopia to study at a small German university called Jacobs, to an ambitious post-graduate track through the University of London, Cambridge, Max Planck Institute and University of Bristol before securing his current faculty position at Yale University.

Along the way, Dr. Mogessie has earned numerous international prizes and accolades, advocated passionately for diversity and representation in the sciences, and made significant research contributions to his field.

We sat down with Dr. Mogessie to talk about the compounding returns of individual choices, the long-term value of prioritizing happiness, and the transformative potential of extending the reproductive clock.

As part of our 25th anniversary, we’re exploring the theme of decision-making. What are some key decisions that helped shape the course of your own life?  

One of the most consequential decisions of my life was to pursue higher education abroad as a teenager in Ethiopia, despite having very limited resources and no clear roadmap for how to get there. At the time, I applied to 83 universities in the United States and to Jacobs University because I was specifically searching for institutions that could provide full financial support.

Jacobs was the only place that accepted me and made that transition realistic. In a very real sense, there is a direct line between that decision and everything that followed. Without Jacobs, I genuinely do not think I would have the career or life I have today.

Sounds like a healthy reminder of the value of persistence, and that sometimes ‘success’ means hearing 83 ‘no’s before you get the one ‘yes’ that changes everything!

In hindsight, what is interesting is that some of the same institutions that rejected my applications years ago are now inviting me back to give lectures and seminars. Life has a strange sense of humor sometimes!

Looking back now as a more experienced and accomplished scientist, how did those early years shape your relationship with academia and contribute to your subsequent success in your field?

When I arrived at Jacobs, I became acutely aware that institutional access and institutional belief are not always the same. There are often unspoken assumptions about who appears destined for academic success and who does not. I was not necessarily seen as the obvious future scientist or professor, and that experience shaped me profoundly.

Over time, I learned to rely less on external validation and to pursue ambitious ideas even when others were skeptical. That mindset eventually became one of the defining strengths of my scientific career. Much of the work my lab is now known for emerged from pursuing questions that many initially considered too difficult, unconventional or technically unrealistic.

How did you find that confidence to pursue your ambitions despite the external expectations? Was that part of your growth experience at Jacobs or did it come later?

One of the most impactful things I took from Jacobs was a conversation with one of my advisors that stayed with me long after graduation. He told me very bluntly to make sure that whatever path I pursued genuinely made me happy, because a person can seemingly have everything and still be deeply unhappy. The way he said it was much more direct and memorable than that.  

What struck me at the time was not only the advice itself but also the fact that he cared enough to say it at all. He did not need to care that much about a student’s long-term happiness or life trajectory beyond academics, and I had never heard a professor speak so openly or so personally before.

How have you seen that advice manifest in your decisions and actions since that time?

I carried that perspective with me through my PhD and postdoctoral years, which were often much harder than they needed to be. There were periods of real uncertainty and exhaustion, and moments when I seriously considered leaving academia altogether. But even during the hardest periods, actually doing science, discovering things, and thinking deeply about difficult problems consistently made me happy. That carried me through.  

Ironically, I now find myself giving very similar advice to my own trainees. From experience, I can say that loving the process of what you do matters enormously because ambition, prestige, and external validation are rarely enough on their own to sustain someone through the difficult periods of a scientific career.  

Looking back, that conversation probably shaped my career more than either of us realized.  

Your life may have looked very different had you been accepted to one of the larger American universities you applied to. How did studying in the small, highly international environment of Jacobs University shape your experience?

The small class sizes at Jacobs made an enormous difference in my education. Teaching felt genuinely interactive and discussion-driven rather than simply broadcasting information to students. In several courses, contributions to class discussions counted toward the grade, creating an environment where students were expected to engage actively with ideas rather than passively absorb material.  

That same level of engagement extended into laboratory teaching and research. Professors interacted closely with students, and there was a level of accessibility that is quite rare at large, established universities. During my senior thesis research, for example, I worked directly with Professor Sebastian Springer and even performed experiments alongside him in the lab. Looking back now as a principal investigator myself, I can tell he must have been an exceptional trainee earlier in his career, because he had a natural instinct for teaching science through active engagement rather than hierarchy.

Are there aspects of this approach that you’d like to see more of in larger, more established institutions like Yale, where you work today?

Many of these experiences are surprisingly limited at globally prestigious institutions, including places like Yale, simply because scale changes the nature of teaching. Large lecture courses make this kind of interaction very difficult.  

My teaching style today remains heavily influenced by how I was taught at Jacobs. I try to make lectures feel like active conversations in which students are intellectually engaged rather than anonymous members of an audience. I sometimes think universities underestimate how transformative that can be. In a system increasingly focused on grades, metrics, and scalability, suggesting that discussion and participation should play a major role in learning can sound outlandish to the status quo, even though it is often one of the most effective ways to truly learn.  

Much of your research focuses on infertility. How did you discover your passion for this field?

In many ways, I realized that female meiosis – the cellular process through which human eggs are produced – was the opposite of what I had been taught earlier in life. Rather than a solved or static topic, it has turned out to be a beautifully intricate biological system that continually challenges established assumptions, which probably mirrors my broader attitude toward science itself. But my journey into the field began much earlier than that.

I can trace my interest in mechanistic cell biology back to my time as a Biochemistry and Cell Biology major at Jacobs. I became fascinated by how cells organize internally and carry out highly precise processes such as cell division.  

During my PhD, I studied how the cytoskeleton – a complex network of filaments that help maintain cell shape and structure – reorganizes during division in human somatic cells, the ordinary cells that make up most of our bodies. Near the end of my PhD, I became increasingly interested in chromosome segregation, but I knew I did not want to remain in the conventional somatic cell division field because it already felt saturated and I did not think I could make a uniquely meaningful contribution there.

Chromosome segregation also occurs in reproductive cells through meiosis. Ironically, I had always found meiosis boring when I learned it growing up because it was usually reduced to DNA copying and reshuffling. However, around that time, advanced microscopy studies of mammalian egg cells began revealing something unexpected: a highly organized structure built from actin filaments surrounding the chromosome segregation machinery.  

Coming from a background in cytoskeletal biology, I found this completely fascinating and was honestly shocked that nobody understood what this structure did. That was my real “aha” moment.  

A major part of my career since then has focused on understanding this structure. I later discovered that it is essential for producing healthy eggs and for preventing chromosome segregation errors linked to infertility, miscarriage and genetic disorders, and that it deteriorates with maternal age.  

If you could step 25 years into the future and look back on your work, what kind of contribution or impact would you hope to see?

If I could look back 25 years from now, I would hope my work contributed meaningfully to extending female reproductive longevity, even modestly. Extending healthy female fertility by even five years could profoundly change the lives of many women and their families.

Female reproductive aging is one of the most consequential yet least openly discussed sources of inequity in society. Women are often forced to make decisions about family and career under biological constraints that men do not face in the same way. For a long time, this biological clock has been treated almost as an inevitable, fixed limit, but understanding its molecular basis suggests it may eventually be modifiable.  

This question feels especially important to me because, beyond Jacobs, I was trained almost entirely by women scientists, and my lab today is composed entirely of women researchers who are driving many of our discoveries. Their scientific creativity, rigor, and leadership make it impossible not to recognize how much scientific potential society has likely lost historically due to the decline in female fertility with age and the structural limitations surrounding it. It is difficult not to wonder how much further human knowledge might have advanced if science and society had fully benefited from women’s contributions throughout their careers.

At the same time, humanity is entering a major demographic transition. Populations are aging globally, and fertility rates are declining in many parts of the world. Reproductive aging is therefore not only a personal or medical issue but increasingly a societal one.  

Research on aging has understandably focused heavily on extending lifespan and reducing age-related diseases. But reproductive aging deserves a similar level of scientific attention and urgency. I would like to think that, looking back decades from now, my work helped advance that field and contributed to changing what women are biologically able to choose for their own lives.

That sounds like incredibly valuable work, and we wish you the very best with your endeavors. Thank you for your time, Binyam!