Eaton was born on December 23, 1959, in Oakland, California. One of Eaton's self-confessed role models as a child was Spock, due to his rational approach to problem solving. She was also a talented pianist, having played since the age of eight. As an undergraduate, Eaton was torn between a career as a biologist, a comparative literature professor, or a mathematician. The deciding factor was a course that was taught from primary literature instead of a textbook, sparking an enthusiasm for biological research. Eaton completed a B.S. in biology at Brown University in 1981 before earning a Ph.D. in microbiology at University of California, Los Angeles in 1988. Her thesis, entitled Molecular analysis of an immunoglobulin heavy chain promoter, was completed under the supervision of Kathryn Calame. She was awarded the Sydney C. Rittenberg Award for Distinguished Academic Achievement in Microbiology by the Association of Academic Women in 1988 for her doctoral work.
Career and research
Eaton began her research career working on immunoglobulin heavy chain genes at University of California, Los Angeles, in the laboratory of Kathryn Calame. In 1988, Eaton switched fields to developmental biology, investigating how cells obtain their tissue identities in the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, while in the group of Thomas B. Kornberg at University of California, San Francisco. Eaton moved to Germany in 1993 to work at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg in the group of Kai Simons, where she combined her expertise in microbiology and developmental biology to investigate how the cytoskeleton helps cells attain their polarity in tissues, using the fruit fly as a model system. In 2000, Eaton became one of the founding group leaders at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden, Germany, where her group investigated how signalling molecules and mechanical properties of cells act together to shape tissues in the fruit fly. In 2015, she became professor of developmental cell biology of invertebrates at the TU Dresden.
Eaton was married to the British scientist, Anthony A. Hyman. The couple had two children. She was an athlete and runner, and had a black belt in Taekwondo. After her death, her sister wrote: "She took great pleasure in preparing exquisite meals and had an exotic fashion sense. She loved perfume. She taught and practiced Tae Kwon Do as a second-degree black belt. She finished crossword puzzles way too quickly, played concertos, and read extensively. She fit Jane Austen’s strictest description of an 'accomplished woman' while maintaining a natural humility and 'insatiable curiosity'".
Disappearance and death
Eaton disappeared on July 2, 2019. She was last seen playing the piano in the hotel lobby where she was attending a conference at the Orthodox Academy in Chania, Crete. It is believed that her disappearance occurred during a run. Greek police found her body on July 8 inside a World War II bunker. A homicide investigation was opened after it was determined that she died by asphyxiation. A 27 year-old Greek suspect, the son of a priest, farmer, and married father Giannis Paraskakis, was apprehended. He later admitted to hitting her with a car, then raping her and dumping her body in the bunker.
Memorial fund
In honor of Eaton's interdisciplinary legacy to the scientific community, the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology in Austria instated a memorial fund with the stated aim to support young scientists' endeavors in interdisciplinary topics.
Selected publications
Eaton, Suzanne. Cell.82: 5.
Eaton, Suzanne. Journal of Cell Biology.135: 1277.
