Postdoctoral Scholars Lucía Fernandez-del-Rio (Catherine Clarke group) and Zipeng Zhao (Yu Huang and Xiaofeng Duan groups) receive the 2021 UCLA Chancellor’s $7,500 Awards for Postdoctoral Research.
The award honors UCLA’s postdoctoral scholars for their important contributions to the university’s interrelated missions of research, teaching, and service. Lucía Fernández del Río and Zhao were recognized at the 2021 UCLA Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Scholars Award Virtual Ceremony on April 14, 2020.
Dr. Lucía Fernández del Río received the Chancellor’s Award for Postdoctoral Research for her work characterizing the proteins and mechanisms responsible for uptake, trafficking, and assimilation of exogenously supplied Coenzyme Q. She received her B.Sc. in Biology (2011), M.Sc. (2012) in Molecular, Cellular and Genetic Biotechnology, and her Ph.D. in Biomedicine (2017) from the University of Córdoba, Spain. Fernández del Río first came to UCLA in the summer of 2016 when she visited Professor Catherine Clarke’s lab as a graduate student. She then returned in 2017 as a postdoctoral scholar. She worked in the Clarke group full-time until August 2020, and 50% time until the end of January 2021. In 2020, Fernández del Río received the Molecular Biology Institute’s Boyer/Parvin Postdoctoral Award. In February 2021, she started a new position as Assistant co-director of The Mitochondrial and Metabolism Core in the David Geffen School of Medicine under the direction of Professors Orian Shirihai and Linsey Stiles.
Dr. Zipeng Zhao received the Chancellor’s Award for Postdoctoral Research for his contribution to the field of clean energy and related catalysis. More specifically, his research is focused on developing novel catalyst to reduce the need of noble metal in the proton exchange membrane fuel cell, which is critical for its broad implementation. Zhao received his B.S. in Chemistry from Xiamen University (2011). After receiving his Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from UCLA in 2017, he started his postdoctoral research with Professor Xiangfeng Duan (Chemistry & Biochemistry) and Professor Yu Huang (UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science, Materials Science and Engineering).
Penny Jennings, UCLA Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry, penny@chem.ucla.edu.
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