Director, BIO5 Institute, The University of Arizona

Since taking the helm of BIO5 in 2004, Director Vicki Chandler, Ph.D. has positioned the institute to fuel statewide efforts to grow the bioscience industry in Arizona. Under her leadership, BIO5 focuses on fostering cutting edge interdisciplinary research, driving innovations to market, and improving science education to ensure a capable workforce.

Dr. Chandler serves on the Flinn Foundation's Arizona Bioscience Roadmap Steering Committee, the National Advisory Board for C-Path, the Board of Directors of Bioindustry Organization of Southern Arizona (BioSA), and the Advisory Board for UA's Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) program in the Women's Studies Department. She is a founding member of the Pima Community College Board of Visitors, an appointed Commissioner for the State of Arizona Department of Commerce and Economic Development, and in 2005, Dr. Chandler participated in the Arizona Town Hall on Biosciences.

A Regents Professor in the departments of Plant Sciences and Molecular and Cellular Biology, she holds the Weiler Endowed Chair for Excellence in Agriculture and Life Sciences. Dr. Chandler was on the faculty at the University of Oregon from 1985 until coming to the University of Arizona in 1997.

In 2005, she received a NIH Director's Pioneer Award -- a first for an Arizona scientist. In the early stages of her career she received the Presidential Young Investigator Award and the Searle Scholar award. Dr. Chandler is member of the National Academy of Sciences-USA, a Fellow of The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and is a nationally and internationally recognized leader in the field of regulation of gene expression in plants and animals.

Her research results have significant implications, not only for the field of plant genetics, but also for understanding human disease. Dr. Chandler is frequently asked to present her latest research findings in national and international venues, and she is an author on more than 80 scientific papers in top quality periodicals in her field. Dr. Chandler's BioGate Research Profile

Dr. Chandler provides national service for federal funding agencies --NSF, NIH, USDA, DOE and scientific publishing through her membership on editorial and advisory boards, including the journals Science and Genetics. Currently, she is on the governing council of the National Academies of Science and has served in elected leadership roles in the American Society of Plant Biology, Genetics Society of America, and the International Plant Molecular Biology Society. She is on the Scientific Advisory Boards of two biotechnology companies, Arcadia and Edenspace.

Educational achievements include a bachelor's degree in biochemistry at the University of California, Berkeley and a doctorate in biochemistry from the University of California, San Francisco. She was a National Science Foundation Plant Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Biological Sciences at Stanford University.