Seven faculty members named fellows of American Association for the Advancement of Science

Seven UC Berkeley faculty members from a broad range of fields are among the 2024 class of fellows elected to the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), one of the world’s largest general scientific societies and publisher of the Science family of journals.

The 471 new AAAS fellows announced today (March27) were recognized for their achievements across disciplines, from research, teaching and technology to administration in academia, industry and government to excellence in communicating to and interpreting science for the public. The distinguished lifetime honor is accompanied by a certificate and a gold and blue rosette pin representing science and engineering, respectively. They will be celebrated at a forum in Washington, D.C., on June 7, 2025.

The new UC Berkeley fellows are:

David Bilder, professor of molecular and cell biology. He was recognized “for distinguished contributions in genetics and development and leadership in the Drosophila Research community, particularly for identification and characterization of the molecular hierarchy regulating epithelial polarity.” Bilder employs fruit flies to understand how the organization of epithelial tissue, the main constituent of human organs, prevents tumor formation and how tumors eventually kill their hosts.

Phillip Messersmith, chair of the Department of Bioengineering and the Class of 1941 WWII Memorial Chair in Bioengineering and Materials Science and Engineering. He was honored “for distinguished contributions to the understanding of wet biological adhesion, and for the development and translation of biologically inspired materials.” Messersmith, who is also a faculty senior scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, focuses on the structure-property relationships in biological materials and how this information can be used to design biologically inspired materials for use in health care.

Diana Bautista, professor of molecular and cell biology and of neuroscience and a member of the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute. She was named a fellow for her “distinguished investigations into the neuroimmune mechanisms that drive chronic itch, including the identification of critical mechanisms and molecules that are now targets for therapy.” A Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, Bautista studies the transduction molecules in skin and the nervous system that underlie touch and how they go awry in disorders of touch, such as pruritis.

Bernard Sadoulet, professor emeritus of physics. He was honored for “pioneering work and leading roles in the development and use of phonon-mediated detection techniques enabling direct searches for weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs).” Sadoulet was one of the leaders of the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search, a collaboration that operated an underground experiment in Minnesota in an attempt to detect WIMPs, which are among the main candidates for dark matter particles.

Fei Xu, professor of psychology. She was recognized “for distinguished contributions to the fields of developmental psychology and cognitive science, particularly regarding the roots of infant learning and early cognitive development in humans.” Xu directs the Berkeley Early Learning Lab, where she studies babies and young children to understand cognitive and language development from infancy to early childhood.

Biostatistician Lexin Li, professor of public health and member of the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute. He was honored “for distinguished contributions to statistical neuroimaging analysis, brain connectivity and network analysis, tensor data analysis, dimension reduction and variable selection, including deep learning and reinforcement learning.” Li, recently named editor-in-chief of the Annals of Applied Statistics, focuses on statistical methodology and data analysis used in neuroimaging, computational biology and biomedical research.

Kam-Biu Luk, a Distinguished Professor of Physics at UC Berkeley and a visiting professor at the University of Hong Kong. He was honored “for distinguished contributions to particle physics, particularly the leadership of experiments that have shed new light on CP violation and neutrino oscillations.” Luk is best known as co-leader of the Daya Bay Reactor Neutrino Experiment, near Hong Kong, which discovered a third kind of neutrino oscillation. He is currently involved with the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) in South Dakota through his affiliation with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

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