Faculty Awards
Nick Spitzer Elected into the National Academy of Sciences
Nicholas C. Spitzer, Distinguished Professor of Biology, is one of three faculty members at UC San Diego elected this year to the National Academy of Sciences, one of the highest honors bestowed on U.S. scientists and engineers. The other two faculty members are Peter J. Novick, professor of cellular and molecular medicine, and Nancy Knowlton, adjunct professor of marine biology at Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
Emily Troemel Receives 2013 Merck Irving Sigal Memorial Award
Assistant Professor Emily Troemel has won the 2013 Merck Irving Sigal Memorial Award from the American Society of Microbiology. Given in honor of Irving Sigal, who was instrumental in the early discovery of therapies to treat HIV/AIDS, the award recognizes early career scientists who have had commendable basic research in medical microbiology and infectious diseases.
Professors Johnson and Spitzer honored with 2013 Faculty Excellence Awards
Professors Tracy Johnson and Nick Spitzer are among the faculty members this year honored with 2013 Chancellor's Associates Faculty Excellence Awards. Johnson, an associate professor of molecular biology and UC San Diego undergraduate alumna '91, was given the award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, and Spitzer, distinguished professor of neurobiology, was given the award for Excellence in Research in Science and Engineering.
Paul G. Allen Family Foundation Awards $1.6 Million to Young Investigator Suckjoon Jun
One of the newest faculty members at UC San Diego–Suckjoon Jun, an assistant professor of physics and molecular biology–has won a $1.6 million award from the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation. This is the first award given to a UC San Diego recipient from the foundation, which was established by the co-founder of Microsoft to support high-risk, high-reward ideas in science.
Eva-Maria Schoetz Collins Named 2013 Sloan Research Fellow
Eva-Maria Schoetz Collins, assistant professor of physics and biology, is one of four faculty members at UC San Diego who have been named 2013 Sloan Research Fellows by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Awarded annually since 1955, the fellowships are given to early-career scientists and scholars whose achievements and potential identify them as rising stars, the next generation of scientific leaders.
Associate Dean for Education Selected as Vision and Change Leadership Fellow
Gabriele Wienhausen, the Division's Associate Dean for Education, has been selected as one of 40 Vision and Change Leadership Fellows to lead an effort over the next year in catalyzing reform in undergraduate biology education.
Tim Baker Honored with Microscopy Society of America 2012 Distinguished Scientist Award
Timothy S. Baker, a professor in the Section of Molecular Biology and in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, has been selected by the Microscopy Society of America to receive its 2012 Distinguished Scientist Award for the Biological Sciences. The award is in recognition of his internationally acclaimed research and distinguished contributions in the field of microscopy.
Assistant Professor Carolyn Kurle Named 2012-2013 Hellman Faculty Fellow
Carolyn Kurle, an assistant professor in the Section of Ecology, Behavior and Evolution, has been named a 2012-2013 Hellman Faculty Fellow. She and 21 other junior faculty members at UC San Diego won the award this year to support them in their research and scholarly work toward tenured positions.
Gabriele Wienhausen Honored with 2012 Athena Pinnacle Award in Education
Associate Dean for Education Gabriele Wienhausen has won the 2012 Athena Pinnacle Award in Education. The Athena San Diego Pinnacle Awards are presented annually to individuals and organizations that, "through the development and promotion of skilled and talented women, have had a significant impact within the San Diego technology, life science, healthcare, defense, energy, clean-tech and services sectors."
Roberto Malinow Elected to National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences today elected Biology Professor Roberto Malinow and two other faculty members at the University of California, San Diego to membership in the prestigious National Academy of Sciences, one of the highest honors bestowed on U.S. scientists and engineers.
Two Biology Professors Honored with Faculty Excellence Awards
William Kristan, professor of neurobiology, and James Kadonaga, professor of molecular biology, will receive 2012 Chancellor’s Associates Faculty Excellence Awards at a ceremony on March 29.
Three Faculty Named Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Fellows
Three faculty members in the Division of Biological Sciences—Ananda Goldrath, David Traver and Elina Zuniga—have been named Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Fellows. They will each receive research awards of up to $110,000 per year from the society over the next five years.
Therese Markow Wins George W. Beadle Award from Genetics Society of America
Professor Therese Markow has received the George W. Beadle Award from the Genetics Society of America “for outstanding contributions to the community of genetics researchers.” The award was established by the society in 1999 and named for its past president, who received the 1958 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discovery of the role of genes in regulating biochemical events within cells.
Jim Posakony Named 2011 AAAS Fellow
Professor Jim Posakony is one of nine faculty members at UC San Diego named 2011 Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the nation’s largest scientific organization. He and UC San Diego professors Alexandra Newton, Joseph O’Connor, Carol Padden, Dena Plemmons, Michael Sailor, Lu Jeu Sham, Lisa Tauxe and Paul Yu were among 539 individuals selected this year by colleagues in their disciplines to be honored by the association for “efforts toward advancing science applications that are deemed scientifically or socially distinguished.”
Ananda Goldrath named Leukemia and Lymphoma Society Scholar
Associate Professor Ananda Goldrath has been named a Leukemia and Lymphoma Society Scholar. She will receive a research award of $110,000 per year from the society for the next five years for her study on the Transcriptional Control of Lymphocyte Differentiation and Transformation. Goldrath received her Ph.D. from the University of Washington. She was a postdoctoral fellow at the Joslin Diabetes Center at Harvard Medical School, where she was the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation-Irvington Fellow. She is also a Pew Scholar.
