IIGB/CEPCEB Director Natasha Raikhel was one of 84 newly elected members to the National Academy of Sciences, considered one of the highest and most competitive honors to be bestowed on a scientist. The NAS annually elects members and foreign associates in recognition of distinguished career achievement in original research.

Raikhel’s election celebrates a life-long contribution to the field of plant cell biology. Raikhel received her M.S. in Biology and her Ph.D. from the Institute of Cytology in Leningrad, USSR. Prior to working at UCR, Natasha served as university distinguished professor in the DOE-Plant Research Laboratory at Michigan State University where she developed a research program to study the plant genes involved in nuclear and vacuolar protein sorting in Arabidopsis thaliana. Research in her laboratory is presently focused on understanding the mechanisms of endosomal and vacuolar trafficking in plant cells, using a combination of cellular, molecular, genetic, proteomic, genomic, and chemical genomics technologies.

Raikhel’s work has been acknowledged by numerous awards throughout her career. She was named as Guggenheim Fellow in 1996, awarded the 2002 Senior Career Recognition Award by the Women in Cell Biology Committee of the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB), and the 2004 Stephen Hales Prize by the American Society of Plant Biologists for her pioneering work in the field of plant biology. She was elected as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2002, and an inaugural Fellow of the American Society of Plant Biologists in 2007. In 2008 she was honored as UCR’s 2007-08 Faculty Research Lecturer – the top university research award annually presented to only one individual. With over 125 refereed research publications and 65 solicited articles, she is recognized as one of the most highly-cited researchers in the field of plant science and is frequently invited as a keynote speaker to national and international conferences and symposiums.

Raikhel has also remained actively involved in the plant science community. Currently serving as IIGB/CEPCEB Director since 2005, Raikhel also holds the Ernst and Helen Leibacher Endowed Chair in Plant Molecular, Cell Biology & Genetics. She has served on numerous government and industry advisory boards and several editorial boards and as Editor-in-Chief of one of the oldest and most well-respected plant science journals, Plant Physiology, from 2000-2005. Throughout a career spanning over three decades, she has guided many graduate students and post-doctoral scholars in their research.

Nominations to the National Academy of Sciences can only be submitted by Academy members and is subject to final vote at the Academy’s annual meeting in April.In addition to Susan Wessler, distinguished professor of genetics in the Botany and Plant Sciences department, and Alexander Raikhel, distinguisher professor in the Entomology department, Raikhel’s election marks the third such honor accorded to an IIGB member.