Smarty Party Speaker

Michael Young, Ph.D.

Michael Young is Richard and Jeanne Fisher Professor and Head of the Laboratory of Genetics at The Rockefeller University. From 2004-2023 he was also the University’s Vice-President for Academic Affairs. Along with colleagues Jeffrey Hall and Michael Rosbash, he received the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discoveries of molecular mechanisms that control circadian (daily) rhythms. Young received a B.A. in biology in 1971 and a Ph.D. in genetics in 1975, both from The University of Texas, Austin. His graduate work examined gene sizes and distributions in the chromosomes of Drosophila. He moved to The Rockefeller University in 1978, following postdoctoral work on transposable genetic elements in the Department of Biochemistry, Stanford University School of Medicine. Most of his research at Rockefeller has been focused on the molecular and cellular biology of sleep and circadian rhythms. 

Young used the fruit fly Drosophila to reveal the make-up of the circadian clock. The first clock gene to be detected in any organism, named "period", was physically isolated by Young in 1984 and screens in his laboratory subsequently identified five additional genes that are each essential for production of circadian rhythms. Interactions among these genes, and their proteins, contribute to a network of molecular oscillations within single cells throughout the body and allow circadian rhythms to align with environmental day/night cycles. Most of the clock genes discovered by Young and his colleagues in Drosophila are also central to the circadian pathways of humans where they promote rhythmic expression of roughly half our genes. 

Deborah Norville

Two-time Emmy© winner Deborah Norville earned a place in television history as the longest running anchor on American television when her 30-plus year tenure as Anchor of “Inside Edition” eclipsed such icons as Johnny Carson, Oprah Winfrey and Barbara Walters on their respective programs.

In 2025, Norville signed off from “Inside Edition” to become host of “The Perfect Line,” a new format game show airing on broadcast television and the Game Show Cable Network.

Norville has been inducted into the Broadcasting & Cable Hall of Fame and received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Broadcasters Foundation of America. In October of 2025, she will receive a Lifetime Achievement Emmy from the National Television Academy of Arts and Sciences Daytime Emmys.

Norville is a former co-host of NBC’s “Today” and anchor of NBC "News at Sunrise" and served as an anchor and correspondent for CBS News. She began her career at WAGA –TV in Atlanta, while still a student at the University of Georgia, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and graduated summa cum laude with a perfect 4.0 GPA and named First Honor Graduate.

Norville, a New York Times best-selling author and lecturer, is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Women's Forum of New York, and is a Director for the Broadcasters Foundation of America and the Palm Beach Civic Association where she serves on the Executive Committee.

She can be reached via her website DeborahNorville.com.