Welcome to the October edition of Newsroom’s monthly “Have you heard?” roundup, your quick-hit guide to the faculty and staff breakthroughs, honors, milestones and memorable moments shaping our campus and community. Think of it as your regular dose of Bruin brilliance — smart, useful and worth sharing. From research awards and new leadership appointments to heartfelt remembrances, here’s what’s been happening recently.
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Awards, grants and honors
A lifetime of powerful poetry and a top national prize
UCLA English professor Harryette Mullen is the winner of the Academy of American Poets’ 2026 Wallace Stevens Award, the organization’s lifetime achievement prize. Her award citation read in part: “Harryette Mullen has spent more than 30 years committed to the rigorous, luscious and ravishingly ferocious work of making poems that refuse easy categorization and bring us to the thrilling edges of what language is capable of. Congratulations, Professor Mullen!
Global recognition for a Bruin wildfire researcher
Postdoctoral researcher and UCLA Fielding School of Public Health scientist Yuan Yao has been recognized with a Young Investigator Meeting Award from the International Society of Exposure Science, one of the leading global associations of scientists who study the connections between pollutant exposure and human health. Yao was recognized for her work as an early-career environmental health researcher, including studies into the aftermath of the 2025 L.A. wildfires.
A first-of-its-kind honor for Bruin economist
UCLA’s Dubchansky Chair in Economics Pablo Fajgelbaum, a trade and urban economist, was named recipient of the inaugural Amartya Sen Economics Prize by the Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association and the Amartya Sen Economics Prize Foundation. The biennial prize recognizes an economist under the age of 45 for an influential body of work and significant contributions to the understanding of economic issues relevant to Latin America and the Caribbean.
An elite circle of economists
UCLA professor of economics Ariel Burstein was elected a fellow of the Econometric Society, an international society that recognizes contributions to the advancement of economic theory and its applications. Burstein’s research focuses on trade and international macroeconomics. His recent projects have studied the impact of trade on the college wage premium, firms’ incentives to innovate, the impact of immigration on labor market outcomes and more. Election as a fellow is among the profession’s distinguished honors, with candidates nominated by members and elected by the society’s active fellows.
From Mars rovers to safer cars
Distinguished adjunct professor of electrical and computer engineering at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering Asad Madni has been elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, one of the country’s highest honors for distinguished scholars, artists and scientists. Madni was elected to the Academy of Science for his “pioneering contributions to the development and commercialization of sensing and systems technologies [that] revolutionized navigation and stability in aerospace and automotive systems, helping to save millions of lives worldwide and establishing the critical foundation for autonomous vehicles.”
A cancer drug pioneer and a lifetime achievement award
Distinguished professor Michael Jung, UCLA’s Walter and Shirley Wang Chair in Medicinal Drug Discovery, has received the UC Regents Innovation Distinguished Lifetime Achievement Award for his decades of research and innovation in medicinal chemistry and drug discovery. The award recognizes a faculty member with a distinguished career of sustained innovation, visionary research and enduring contributions that have enriched lives across generations.
Two prestigious science honors
Victoria Sork, distinguished professor and director of the UCLA Mathias Botanical Garden and Herbarium, and Felipe Zapata, associate professor and co-director of the Center for Tropical Research, have been recognized by the California Academy of Sciences as a medalist and fellow, respectively. The academy is a group of distinguished scientists, nominated and appointed in recognition of their outstanding contributions to the natural sciences.
A cleaner future
Yu Huang, a professor of materials science and engineering and holder of the Traugott and Dorothea Frederking Endowed Chair at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering, has been selected by the Falling Walls Foundation for its 2026 Science Breakthrough of the Year in Engineering and Technology for research aimed at making hydrogen fuel cells more durable and cost-effective. Huang, who joined UCLA in 2006, is being recognized for research designed to extend the lifespan of hydrogen fuel cells while reducing their reliance on platinum, an expensive precious-metal catalyst used to drive the chemical reactions that generate electricity.
What’s on the menu?
UCLA scientist Tara TeSlaa has received a National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director’s New Innovator Award to develop a new way of studying what individual cell types actually “eat” inside the body. With up to $2.375 million in research support over five years, TeSlaa and her team will advance a method called STOMP that creates a lasting record of how cells use nutrients in their natural environment — information researchers can read even after the cells have been isolated.
Aging like a SWAN
The Study of Women's Health Across the Nation and its seven designated research sites, which include UCLA Health, were awarded $44 million over the next five years from the NIH to investigate how menopause and midlife factors influence cognitive function, bone health, cardiovascular health and overall well-being as women age. The grant, which will be distributed over the next five years, will fund a long-running research project that has been following a multiethnic cohort of women since 1995. The research is being led by several UCLA Health physicians.
Bruins join the ranks of medicine’s elite
Three UCLA faculty members — health economist Susan Ettner, whose research has revealed deep connections between income and health; physician-scientist Donald Kohn, a pioneer in gene therapies for children with life-threatening diseases; and cancer researcher Dennis Slamon, whose discoveries have transformed breast cancer treatment, have been elected to the National Academy of Medicine. Election to the academy is considered one of the highest honors in medicine, recognizing outstanding professional achievement and a commitment to service. Huge congratulations!
Bruins get a big boost to crack a genetic mystery
A multidisciplinary team led by Dr. Tamer Sallam, professor of medicine in the UCLA Division of Cardiology and director of the UCLA Center for Preventive Cardiology & Cardiometabolic Health, has received a grant of $7.8 million from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, part of the NIH. The funds will support research addressing one of the most persistent questions in metabolic disease research: Why do known genetic risk factors explain only a small fraction of the inherited risk for diabetes and obesity?
Investigating a dangerous side effect
UCLA Health researchers, led by UCLA neurologist Melissa Spencer, have been awarded a $1.75 million federal grant to investigate why some Duchenne muscular dystrophy patients develop liver toxicity after receiving a gene therapy treatment meant to prevent muscle deterioration. One of the most common genetic diseases of childhood for boys, Duchenne muscular dystrophy causes rapid muscle deterioration that can eventually lead to death. The research will investigate liver toxicity caused by treatment with Elvidys, a one-time gene therapy treatment.
Uncovering the secrets of the brain-body connection
UCLA Health researchers Dr. Sahib Khalsa and Dr. Olujimi Ajijola were awarded a $3.5 million NIH grant to establish a national, multisite research center to study interoceptive neuroscience — the study of how the nervous system senses, interprets and integrates signals from within the body to maintain equilibrium. The five-year grant will establish the Blueprint Coordination Center for Interoception Research, and UCLA Health will serve as the coordinating research hub, with the two physicians serving as co-principal investigators.
Can your speech predict cognitive decline?
Dr. Tue Te, assistant professor of medicine at UCLA Health, has been awarded a five-year K23 Career Development Award from the NIH’s National Institute on Aging. Her project will investigate how spontaneous speech, voice signals and sleep measures can be used as signals to predict subtle signs of cognitive impairment in real-world clinical settings. Her work aims to build a database to screen older adults for Alzheimer’s and other dementias through voice and sleepiness signals.
Putting veterans first
A UCLA Fielding School of Public Health professor has been recognized for his leadership of a team that integrated clinical care with a food bank program for underserved veterans in Los Angeles. Dr. Michael Ong, also a professor of medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, received a 2026 Innovation and Best Practices Award from the National Association of Veterans’ Research and Education Foundations. Ong’s colleagues know him as a professor with a combination of integrity, excellence and community-focused healthcare.
Unlocking new mysteries of HIV
A team of researchers at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, led by epidemiologist Matthew Mimiaga, has secured a $17.3 million grant from the NIH to fund the next six years of the world’s largest and longest-running study aimed at understanding the impact of health conditions that affect people living with, and at heightened risk for, HIV. The funding will support the L.A. clinical research site and allow researchers to track health outcomes and mentor undergraduate and graduate students and early-career scientists.
Extraordinary impact
Veronica Reynoso wants every patient to know someone is listening
Veronica Reynoso, clinic operations manager at the UCLA School of Dentistry’s Special Patient Care Clinic, has been a dedicated Bruin for 20 years — after starting as an administrative assistant in the same department. She is a hero to many, as she and her team help guide patients with major facial trauma and those with special needs through some of the most complex dental and maxillofacial cases in Southern California.
‘Research Powers Progress’ puts UCLA in the spotlight
UCLA Strategic Communications’ Research Powers Progress campaign has been recognized by PRNEWS with an honorable mention at its 2026 Platinum Awards, the organization’s highest honor in public relations and communications. Launched last year, the campaign highlights the many ways UCLA research goes far beyond the walls of our labs and classrooms, providing life-changing and lifesaving discoveries for the greater good.
Coach Close scores another win
UCLA women’s basketball head coach Cori Close, who earlier this year led the program to its first NCAA championship, was honored as the newest recipient of the UCLA Anderson School of Management’s prestigious John Wooden Global Leadership Award. The award recognized Close’s leadership on and off the court, her commitment to student-athletes’ development as people and her dedication to a values-based coaching philosophy, shaped in part by her personal relationship with the late Coach Wooden. Incredible!
Transitions and appointments
A Guggenheim Fellow and a scholar
Professor Sean Metzger has been appointed chair of UCLA’s Department of Asian American Studies. A scholar who works at the intersections of several fields: visual culture (art, digital media, fashion, film, theater); Asian American, Caribbean, Chinese, cinema, performance and sexuality studies, he has published approximately 100 articles, interviews and reviews and two books. Metzger was a 2026 Guggenheim Ffellow and recipient of the 2026 fellowship at the Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History at Harvard.
Immunology breakthroughs ahead
David Artis has been appointed as the inaugural chief of the Division of Experimental Medicine in the UCLA Department of Medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine. He will also serve as assistant dean and special advisor to the dean for immunology strategy. Among the most influential immunologists in the world today, Dr. Artis has transformed our understanding of how the immune system functions. More recently, his research has revealed critical interactions between the nervous and immune systems that influence tissue health, inflammation and disease. He has joined UCLA from Cornell Medicine. Welcome, David!
In memoriam
A trailblazer in architectural education
Heather Lynn Roberge, an architect and longtime educator at UCLA, died Sept. 20. Colleagues and students alike knew Roberge as a rigorous and generous teacher, someone who pushed people to think more expansively about what buildings could be while remaining deeply attentive to craft, detail and innovation. Just this year, she was named AIA Los Angeles’ 2026 Educator of the Year. She founded her design practice, Murmur, in Los Angeles in 2008, building over nearly two decades a body of work defined by its curiosity about materials, computation and craft.
See more on Newsroom’s faculty and staff page.
