Luisa Iruela-Arispe, professor of molecular, cell and developmental biology, is this year's recipient of the Gold Shield Faculty Prize that awards $30,000 annually to a full professor in mid-academic career in recognition of extraordinary accomplishment in undergraduate teaching, research and creative activity, and service to UCLA.
The winner is selected by members of the Academic Senate, former prize winners and representatives of Gold Shield, Alumnae of UCLA.
Iruela-Arispe is interim director of the Molecular Biology Institute, chair of the Interdisciplinary Molecular Biology Graduate Program and director of the Cancer Cell Biology Program Area in the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center. Currently, she is completing her sabbatical year at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland.
She received her Ph.D. in 1989 from the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil and did postdoctoral training at the University of Washington in Seattle. From 1994-1998, she was assistant professor in the Department of Pathology at Harvard Medical School and subsequently joined UCLA in 1998.
In addition to the international acclaim she has earned through research and publication, lecturing, teaching and mentoring, she is noted for the influence she has had on students and her peers through leadership and example.
As vice chair of education for her department, she has developed five new courses, two of which are general education courses. According to a nomination letter by Utpal Banerjee, Irving and Jean Stone Professor and department chair, and John Merriam, professor and a fellow department vice chair, her contributions "are far beyond the duties expected of our faculty; she is truly devoted to every aspect of the educational mission. She incorporates the essence of the academic endeavor, one that fully integrates university research and teaching."
