UCSD - University of California - San Diego

03/26/2026 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 03/26/2026 08:13

Eight UC San Diego Researchers Elected 2025 AAAS Fellows

Published Date

March 26, 2026

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Eight researchers at the University of California San Diego have been elected 2025 Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), one of the world's largest general scientific societies and publisher of the Science family of journals.

Andrew D. Chisholm, Farinaz Koushanfar, Albert P. Pisano, Ravi Ramamoorthi, JoAnn Trejo, Emily Troemel, Meenakshi Wadhwa and Sheng Zhong are among the nearly 500 scientists, engineers and innovators who have been recognized for their scientifically and socially distinguished achievements by AAAS.

"This year's cohort of UC San Diego AAAS Fellows illustrates the extraordinary range and depth of our university's research and teaching excellence," said Chancellor Pradeep K. Khosla. "From biology to computing, genomics to materials science and planetary science, the eight honored scholars have made impactful advances that exemplify the world-class faculty our students learn from every day."

Andrew D. Chisholm

Andrew Chisholm is a distinguished professor in the Departments of Neurobiology and of Cell and Developmental Biology. He earned his B.A. and PhD degrees from the University of Cambridge and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Before joining UC San Diego, he was on the faculty at UC Santa Cruz. His research has elucidated the genetic control of epidermal and neuronal development and regeneration using the model organism Caenorhabditis elegans, a transparent nematode commonly known as the roundworm. More recently, his work has focused on the extracellular matrix and extracellular vesicles. As one example, his lab unraveled how complex structures known as apical extracellular matrices are assembled into elaborately woven architectures. He is currently an Allen Distinguished Investigator. He has served as founding president of the International C. elegans Board, and on several editorial and review panels.

Farinaz Koushanfar

Farinaz Koushanfar, a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and founding co-director of the Machine-Intelligence, Computing and Security Center (MICS), holds the Siavouche Nemat-Nasser Endowed Chair and is a leading expert in making computing and artificial intelligence (AI) systems more secure, reliable and privacy-preserving. She has innovated methods to protect computer chips, software and data from tampering and cyberattacks, including methods to track and control chips even after they are deployed. Her work also strengthens AI systems by enabling them to resist attacks that try to mislead or corrupt them. Additionally, she has created techniques that allow AI to learn from data without exposing sensitive information, making it possible to use powerful machine learning while preserving privacy. Koushanfar is a Fellow of the IEEE, ACM and National Academy of Inventors (NAI). She received the 2010 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientist and Engineers (PECASE) from President Obama, and was listed in 2008 MIT Technology Review (TR-35) among the world's top 35 innovators under the age of 35.

Albert P. Pisano

Albert P. Pisano is being recognized for invention, design, fabrication, modeling, and optimization of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) - a field that has enabled advances for the public good in healthcare, energy, environmental and safety monitoring, and more. Pisano's MEMS career is that of a researcher, educator and inventor. Since 2013, he has brought his combined focus on research, workforce development and entrepreneurship to UC San Diego where he serves as Dean of the Jacobs School of Engineering. Pisano holds the Walter J. Zable Chair in Engineering and also serves as Special Adviser to the Chancellor. Pisano previously served on the UC Berkeley faculty for 30 years. He was the senior co-director of the Berkeley Sensor & Actuator Center (an NSF Industry-University Cooperative Research Center), director of the Electronics Research Laboratory (UC Berkeley's largest organized research unit). From 1997 to 1999, Pisano was a program manager for the MEMS Program at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

Ravi Ramamoorthi

RaviRamamoorthi, Ronald L. Graham Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, and director of the Center for Visual Computing, is recognized for contributions to computer graphics and vision, including realistic rendering, physics-based vision, and neural radiance fields. Neural radiance fields (NeRFs) convert photos or videos, even from smartphones, into 3D representations using volumetric scene descriptions and compact neural networks. Radiance-field methods are widely used in consumer applications such as Google Street View and online retail, as well as in generative AI and even movies, with scientific applications spanning astronomy to metrology. His group develops theoretical foundations, mathematical models, and algorithms to digitally recreate the complexity of natural visual appearance. His work on spherical harmonic lighting is now standard in games and film, while his research on sampling and reconstruction for Monte Carlo image synthesis has shaped denoising techniques used in nearly all modern rendering systems.

JoAnn Trejo

JoAnn Trejo is a professor of pharmacology at the UC San Diego School of Medicine and senior assistant vice chancellor for Faculty Affairs within UC San Diego Health Sciences. Her research focuses on cellular responses regulated by G protein-coupled receptors, important drug targets for modern medicine. A renowned expert in her field, she has made numerous novel discoveries related to the regulation of cell signaling in endothelial dysfunction and breast cancer progression. She is a Fellow of the American Society for Cell Biology, Honorary Fellow of the British Pharmacological Society, recipient of an honorary doctorate from the University of Connecticut and elected member of the National Academy of Medicine. Along with her scientific accomplishments, Trejo is a highly regarded mentor, educator and leader, developing effective strategies to enhance training for the next generation of biomedical scientists and improving faculty recruitment and success by spearheading innovative initiatives across campus.

Emily Troemel

Emily Troemel, who has performed pioneering research on how animals defend themselves against infection, is a professor of Cell and Developmental Biology. Her lab studies the fundamental biology of host-pathogen interactions, with a focus on intestinal epithelial cells. Troemel's research has produced landmark discoveries about microsporidia, a phylum of intracellular fungi, including the identification of new species and the mechanisms by which they manipulate the gut of the model organism Caenorhabditis elegans. Her lab also has illuminated key innate immune defense strategies against microsporidia, bacteria and viruses, and how immunity intersects with protein homeostasis. Troemel received her BS from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her PhD from UC San Francisco. Her research has been recognized with the Searle Scholars Award and a Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering, among others. Beyond scientific contributions, Troemel has mentored a generation of researchers who have gone on to tenured faculty positions and leadership roles in academia, government and industry.

Meenakshi Wadhwa

Meenakshi Wadhwa is the Vice Chancellor for Marine Sciences, Director of Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and Dean of the School of Marine, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at UC San Diego. Wadhwa is a planetary scientist interested in the time scales and processes involved in the formation and evolution of the Solar System and planets. Wadhwa's selection honors her "exceptional contributions to planetary science, particularly for developing novel methodologies for using high-precision isotope analyses and high-resolution chronometers to understand processes involved in the development of the Solar System." Prior to joining UC San Diego in 2025, Wadhwa served as director of the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University, with additional appointments as a distinguished visiting scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and as NASA's principal scientist for the Mars Sample Return program, a collaboration between NASA and the European Space Agency to bring samples of Mars to Earth for the first time.

Sheng Zhong

Sheng Zhong is a professor in the Shu Chien-Gene Lay Department of Bioengineering and co-director of the Center for AI in Biomedicine. He develops innovative omics technologies and AI-driven methods to uncover fundamental principles of gene regulation and their roles in disease. His work has advanced RNA and protein interactome mapping and single-cell multi-omics. His research drives biological discoveries including regulatory functions of chromatin-associated RNA and the presence of cell-surface RNA. Zhong has also pioneered AI-enabled approaches for protein function discovery and small-molecule design. Building on these advances, his group has identified a molecular driver of Alzheimer's disease and is exploring new strategies for therapeutic intervention and prevention. He has served as director of the organizational hub of the NIH Common Fund 4D Nucleome program and is a Fellow of the International Academy of Medical and Biological Engineering (IAMBE) and the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE).

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