Professor Jorge Torres has won the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) Ruth Kirschstein Diversity in Science Award.
The award is given annually to honor an outstanding scientist who has shown a strong commitment to encouraging underrepresented minorities to enter the scientific enterprise and who has offered effective mentorship of those within it.
Torres has served as a mentor for several diversity outreach programs at UCLA including the Amgen Scholars Program, the Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) Initiative, the University of California, California Alliance for Minority Participation (CAMP) and Lois Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LSAMP) Symposium program, the MARC (Minority Access to Research Careers) program, the University of California Leadership Excellence through Advanced Degrees (UC LEADS) program, and the Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies (LACES) high school summer intern program.
In 2014, Torres appeared in a promotional video for UCLA which was shown at the national meeting of the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS). The purpose of the video was to promote UCLA as a diverse world leading research and academic institution invested in promoting diversity in the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields.
His awards and honors include the AXE Glenn T. Seaborg Award (2016), an American Cancer Society Research Scholar Award (2014), UCLA Faculty Career Development Award (2012 and 2013), a Cottrell Scholar Award from the Research Corporation for Science Advancement (2013), a Herbert Newby McCoy Award (2012), a Basil O’Connor Award from the March of Dimes Foundation (2011), and a V Scholar Award from The V Foundation for Cancer Research (2010).
Torres will give a talk about his work at the ASBMB’s annual meeting in 2019, which will be held in conjunction with the Experimental Biology conference April 6-9 in Orlando. He will also receive a $3,000 prize.
The news was reported on the UCLA Newsroom website on July 13, 2018.
To learn more about Torres’ research, visit his group’s website.
