UC Merced biology professor wins prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship

Medina is among a group of 180 scholars, artists and scientists to receive the fellowship this year, and one of three in the field of organismic biology and ecology. The fellows were chosen from nearly 3,000 applicants, based on achievement and exceptional promise.

"I am deeply touched by the recognition," said Medina, the first UC Merced professor to receive the fellowship. "The Guggenheim is a fellowship of long tradition, and many of its fellows have moved on to do really great things. I feel extremely fortunate to have been invited to be one of them."

The fellowship will allow Medina to apply systems biology theory -- which she studies, using the relationship between coral and algae as a model -- to symbiosis in general. She will collaborate on the project with internationally prominent scientists.

In 2007, she won the National Science Foundation's Faculty Early Career Development Award. And in 2008, she won the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on scientists and engineers beginning their independent careers.

She recently published a study that showed coral genomes differ depending on their geographic location and that they may be adaptive enough to cope with changing environmental conditions, the university said in a news release.

According to the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, 62 disciplines and 74 academic institutions are represented by this year's Guggenheim Fellows.

Since its establishment in 1925, the foundation has granted nearly $290 million in fellowships to more than 17,000 individuals, including many Nobel and Pulitzer prize winners.