Maria Elena Zavala
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
University of California, Berkeley (PhD)
Maria Elena Zavala | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 1950 (age 75–76) |
| Citizenship | United States of America |
| Alma mater | Pomona College University of California, Berkeley (PhD) |
| Awards | Presidential Award of Excellence for Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring (2000) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Botany |
| Institutions | California State University-Northridge United States Department of Agriculture Yale University Michigan State University |
| Patrons | Ford Foundation |
| Thesis | (1978) |
Maria Elena Zavala (born 1950) is an American plant biologist.[1] She was the first Mexican-American woman to earn a PhD in botany in the United States.[2] She is currently a full professor of biology at the California State University-Northridge, studying plant development.[3][4][5] She is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the first Latina fellow of the American Society of Plant Biologists, the first Latina fellow of the American Society of Cell Biology, and an elected fellow of the Institute of Science.[4][2][6][7] In 2000, she was awarded the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring, which recognizes individuals who have increased the participation of underrepresented minorities in their fields.[4][8][9]
Zavala grew up in La Verne, California, and was one of five children.[3][1] When she was young, her parents were farm workers, and picked lemons in the farms of Southern California.[3]
She credits her interest in plant biology to her grandmother, who was a curandera (a traditional medicine healer), and her father, who grew roses in their garden.[3] She carried out her first experiments in plant biology at the age of seven, when she compared the growth of lentils in the sunlight and in the shade.[1]
In high school, she worked as a teaching assistant in chemistry and biology.[3] She was also in her school band.[3]
Zavala went to Pomona College, where she majored in botany in 1972.[3][4][1] She was awarded a Ford Foundation doctoral fellowship to continue her studies, and went on to do a PhD in plant cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley, graduating in 1978.[3][4][9] She is also the first Chicana to graduate from UC Berkeley's botany department.[10] Zavala is credited to be the first Mexican-American in the United States to graduate with a PhD in botany.[11]
