Martina Newell-McGloughin

Prof. Martina Newell-McGloughlin, (Department of Plant Pathology), an internationally recognized authority on biotechnology, the science and its societal implications, directs the UC Systemwide Biotechnology Research and Education Program (UCBREP), which covers all ten campuses and the three national Laboratories. She is co-director of an NIH Training Grant in Biomolecular Technology one of only three in California the others being at Berkeley and Stanford. Prior to taking up the UCBREP position she had been director of the UC Systemwide Life Sciences Informatics Program and the UC Davis Biotechnology Program. Among her qualifications are a broad knowledge of biotechnology research in academia and industry; experience in developing biotechnology training and education programs; and experience in managing grants programs. She has published numerous papers, articles, book chapters, two books on biotechnology, edited two and has a third in progress. She contributed the chapter on Genetically Modified Microorganisms for Nobel Laureate Joshua Lederberg's Encyclopedia of Microbiology. Her personal research experience has been in the areas of disease resistance in plants, scale-up stability for industrial and pharmaceutical production in microbes and microbiological mining. She has a special interest in Developing World Research and is part of the USAID $19 million Applied Biotechnology Research Program. She speaks frequently before scientific and other associations, testifies before legislative bodies, and often gives news media interviews.

Newell-McGloughlin has extensive experience in the biotechnology arena. From 1989 until 2001, she worked with UC Davis Biotechnology Program and was largely responsible for the program's development and success. She previously worked for the government and in the public and private sector. She has experience in program management and in interacting with researchers and administrators in both the private sector and academia, as well as with public policy makers. She has been instrumental in facilitating collaborations between scientists on campus and in industry and was involved with the development of Life Sciences Informatics (LSI) and BioSTAR programs on the Davis campus.

The UC Davis Academic Federation selected her to receive its 2001 James H. Meyer Distinguished Achievement Award. In 2003 the Council for Biotechnology named her one of the DNA Anniversary Year, Faces of Innovation among such luminaries as Norm Borlaug, Ingo Potrykus, Barbara McClintock and Roger Beachy, the pioneers, visionaries and innovators behind the progress and promise of plant biotechnology over the past 20 years. She received a Doctor of Science (DSc) degree from the National University of Ireland, Maynooth.