Three UCSD Professors Named 2005 Fellows of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science

By Kim McDonald I October 31, 2005

Three UCSD professors have been named 2005 Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the nation's largest scientific organization.

(L) Vivek Malhotra, William Bechtel, and Paul Insel.

William Bechtel, Paul A. Insel and Vivek Malhotra are among the 376 individuals this year selected by colleagues in their disciplines to be honored by the association for "efforts toward advancing science applications that are deemed scientifically or socially distinguished."

The new Fellows were announced in the October 28 issue of the journal Science and will be presented with an official certificate and a gold and blue rosette pin (representing science and engineering, respectively) on February 18, during the 2006 AAAS Annual Meeting in St. Louis.

Bechtel, a professor of philosophy, was cited by the History and Philosophy of Science section of the AAAS "for fundamental contributions to the philosophy of life and cognitive sciences, particularly for articulating and defending an account of mechanistic explanation, and for academic leadership in these areas."

Insel, a professor of pharmacology, was cited by the Medical Sciences section "for fundamental contributions to the understanding of adrenergic signaling, its regulation and its importance, particularly for understanding and treating human disease."

Malhotra, a professor of biology, was cited by the Biological Sciences section for "pioneering molecular analysis of Golgi complex assembly and disassembly during the cell cycle and the role of protein kinase D in secretion."

Bechtel, who is associated also with UCSD's Science Studies Program and Interdisciplinary Program in Cognitive Science, earned his Ph.D in philosophy from the University of Chicago. His research explores issues in the philosophy of the life sciences and he defends the view that scientists often explain phenomena by specifying underlying mechanisms, in contrast to a traditional assumption that understanding involves deduction from laws.

Insel received his M.D. from the University of Michigan Medical School and is director of UCSD's Medical Scientist Training Program. He was the founding president of the National Organization of M.D.-PhD. Training Directors, has served as chair of Step 1 of the USMLE, the national licensing examination for American physicians, and is currently editor of the leading pharmacology journal, Molecular Pharmacology and associate editor of The American Journal of Physiology - Cell Physiology.

Malhotra received his Ph.D. from Oxford University and was a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University. He is a recipient of an American Cancer Society Senior Postdoctoral Fellowship and a Basil O'Connor award from the March of Dimes Foundation.