Natural Sciences

Daniel Lidar, professor of electrical and computer engineering, chemistry, and physics and astronomy, has been elected a Member of the National Academy of Artificial Intelligence. The academy recognized Lidar, who holds the Viterbi Professorship in Engineering, for his “outstanding academic contributions and pioneering research achievements in the field of artificial intelligence.” Lidar, who was elected a Fellow of the International Artificial Intelligence Industry Alliance and a Fellow of the Asia-Pacific Artificial Intelligence Association last year, was also listed as a lifetime highly ranked scholar – No. 2 in quantum computing worldwide – by ScholarGPS

Richard Brutchey, professor of chemistry, has been named a 2025 recipient of the Science Teaching and Research (STAR) Award by the Research Corporation for Science Advancement (RCSA). The award recognizes Brutchey for his pioneering work in materials synthesis and for creating hands-on STEM research opportunities for community college students. The RCSA cited Brutchey’s summer internship program with Cerritos Community College, which launched through his original Cottrell Scholar Award from the RCSA to provide mentorship and classroom-to-lab training for first-generation students. The RCSA champions research in the physical sciences at U.S. and Canadian institutions while cultivating communities of early career researchers.

Arieh Warshel, Distinguished Professor of Chemistry, Biochemistry, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, and Quantitative and Computational Biology, has been elected a Member of the National Academy of Artificial Intelligence. Warshel, who holds the Dana and David Dornsife Chair in Chemistry, was also elected an honorary member of the Serbian National Academy of Sciences.

Remo Rohs, founding chair of the Department of Quantitative and Computational Biology and professor of quantitative and computational biology, chemistry, physics and astronomy, computer science and medicine, has been named a 2025 Fellow of the International Society for Computational Biology.

A new discovery about how tiny protein clusters form in cells could pave the way for treatments for Emery-Dreifuss muscular dystrophy (EDMD), a rare genetic disorder that causes muscle weakness and heart problems.

Vera Gluscevic, associate professor of physics and astronomy, is among 20 early career scientists selected for a Scialog Collaborative Innovation Award from the Research Corporation for Science Advancement. The award is one of eight projects funded in the inaugural year of Scialog: Early Science with the LSST, a three-year initiative supporting foundational research for the Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s upcoming Legacy Survey of Space and Time. Gluscevic will receive a $60,000 award to support her work on “A Unified Model of Stellar Systems in LSST-Y1 for Dark Matter Inference” with Alexander Ji of the University of Chicago.

Santiago Morales, assistant professor of psychology and pediatrics, has received the 2024 Kucharski Young Investigator Award from the International Society for Developmental Psychobiology. This award recognizes early-career researchers making significant contributions to the field. Morales’ research explores how early differences in emotion regulation and temperament shape socioemotional development and risk for psychopathology. Honoring the memory of David Kucharski, the award includes a cash prize, an engraved plaque and an invitation to present at the society’s annual meeting, highlighting Morales’s innovative work and its impact on advancing developmental psychobiology.

Morteza Dehghani, professor of psychology and computer science, has been named a 2024 Fellow of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. This honor recognizes his outstanding contributions to personality and social psychology, including his leadership, research, pedagogy and advocacy for the field. Dehghani’s work combines machine learning and natural language processing to uncover cognitive and psychological patterns in social discourse, offering new insights into moral cognition. The fellowship celebrates his dedication to advancing understanding in the discipline and his role in shaping its future through innovation and influence.