Eleven UC Berkeley faculty members have been elected 2025 Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world’s largest general scientific society and publisher of the Science family of journals.
The honorees, announced today (Thursday, March 26), are among nearly 500 scientists, engineers and innovators recognized for their scientifically and socially distinguished achievements.
The new UC Berkeley members of the 2025 class of fellows are:
Özlem N. Ayduk, professor and chair of the Department of Psychology and co-director of the Relationships and Social Cognition Lab (RASCL). She was recognized “for distinguished contributions to the field of psychology, particularly for advancing our understanding of the processes that explain why people respond differently to rejection and how to manage rumination.”
Abby F. Dernburg, professor of molecular and cell biology and Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, “for distinguished contributions to the field of meiosis, particularly the mechanisms that govern chromosome architecture, dynamics and genome integrity.” She also is a senior scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab).
Felix Raoul Fischer, professor of chemistry, “for distinguished contributions at the interface of physical organic chemistry and condensed matter physics, particularly toward the exploration of strongly correlated phases and nanographene lattices.”
Jack L. Gallant, professor of neuroscience, “for distinguished contributions to the field of systems and cognitive neuroscience, particularly revealing the neural representations underlying vision and language.”
Edward E. Penhoet, professor emeritus of molecular and cell biology and associate dean of the Division of Biological Sciences in Berkeley’s College of Letters and Science, “for outstanding contributions to the scientific community through strategic, scientific and philanthropic leadership in biotechnology.” Penhoet, a former dean of Berkeley’s School of Public Health, co-founded Chiron, an American multinational biotechnology firm that was later acquired by Novartis.
Richmond Sarpong, professor and executive associate dean of the College of Chemistry, “for the development of novel strategies and methods for the synthesis of complex molecules and the late-stage modification of small molecules of relevance to the pharmaceutical and agrochemical industries.”
Frédéric Theunissen, professor of neuroscience and of integrative biology, “for contributions in understanding the neural basis of auditory processing.”
Noah K. Whiteman, professor of molecular and cell biology and of integrative biology, “for distinguished contributions to the field of evolutionary and ecological genetics, particularly for using genome editing to study molecular mechanisms of co-evolution between species.”
Linda Wilbrecht, professor of neuroscience and of psychology, “for distinguished contributions to the neurobiology of learning and adolescent development, including basic insights into basal ganglia function and identification of changes regulated by puberty.”
Alan Chi Lun Yu, Chancellor’s Professor of Linguistics, “for distinguished contributions to the field of linguistics, particularly for cutting-edge research into the relationship between perception of variation and the rise and spread of language change.”
David Zilberman, Professor of the Graduate School in the Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, “for introducing novel economic models to answer fundamental questions in agricultural, environmental and resource economics, as well as for informing public policy on these issues.”
Election as a AAAS Fellow is a tradition dating back to 1874 and a lifetime honor accompanied by a certificate and a gold and blue rosette pin representing science and engineering, respectively. The new fellows will be celebrated at a forum in Washington, D.C., on May 29, 2026.