Pamela Padilla

 

Padilla joined UNT in 2002 and is a professor of biological sciences. She previously served as dean of the College of Science and associate dean for research and graduate studies in the College of Science. After serving one year as interim, she was permanently appointed UNT's associate vice president for research and innovation in October 2019. In 2010, she earned the UNT Early Career Award for Research and Creativity, and she was a Faculty Leadership Fellow from 2015 to 2016.

Padilla's research, which has been continually supported by either the National Institutes of Health or the National Science Foundation, focuses on how environmental and dietary stress affects living organisms at the cellular, genetic, and molecular levels as a means to model human health issues such as ischemia and diabetes. She has earned numerous fellowships and grants, including an NSF CAREER award.

Padilla is the current president and former treasurer and a member of the board of directors of SACNAS, the Society for Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science, the largest STEM diversity organization in the country. She also was a Howard Hughes Medical Institute and SACNAS Advanced Leadership Institute Fellow in 2017, received a Science magazine Prize for Inquiry-Based Instruction in 2012, and was a National Academy of Sciences Kavli Frontiers of Science Fellow in 2008.

Padilla earned her Ph.D. in biology from the University of New Mexico, conducted her post-doctoral research at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington, and was a visiting scholar at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California.