Three UB faculty members are among the most powerful women in Western New York, according to Buffalo Business First’s 2015 Power 100 Women list.

The business newspaper named Norma Nowak, professor of biochemistry and executive director of UB’s New York State Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences, as the 27th most powerful woman.

Anne Curtis, UB Distinguished Professor and chair of the Department of Medicine, School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, was ranked 34th and Liesl Folks, professor of electrical engineering and dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, was ranked 69th.

Business First defined power “by the level of influence a woman has in her orbit — at her company, in her city or county, by the length of her career,” says Managing Editor Donna Collins. “But truly, there’s no easy way to define power and influence. We all know it when we see it — it’s that simple and not that complicated.”

In addition to her roles at UB, Nowak is founder and chief scientific officer of Empire Genomics LLC, a molecular diagnostics company focused on enabling personalized medicine. She is a pioneer in the field of human genomics. Her research contributed directly to the Human Genome Project, as well as to genomic-based approaches to understanding heritable disorders and cancer. Nowak and her team are developing approaches to understanding the information encoded by the genome and using that information to improve patient care.

Curtis, who also serves as Charles and Mary Bauer Professor in the Department of Medicine and CEO and president of UBMD Internal Medicine, is one of the world’s leading clinical cardiac electrophysiologists and an expert in cardiac arrhythmias. Her clinical research has significantly advanced knowledge of human cardiac electrophysiology and heart-rhythm abnormalities. She is a key contributor to the guidelines on atrial fibrillation that are issued periodically by the American College of Cardiology Foundation/American Heart Association Task Force on Practice Guidelines.

Folks, an internationally recognized expert in nanotechnology and magnetism, has been dean for nearly three years, overseeing the school’s seven departments, including tenure-track faculty, staff and 5,000 students. She holds 14 U.S. patents and is the author of more than 50 peer-reviewed papers. She served as president of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers’ (IEEE) Magnetics Society for 2013-14 and in 2012 was a member of the congressionally mandated panel for the Triennial Review of the National Nanotechnology Initiative, facilitated by the National Academy of Sciences.