Carlos Gutiérrez

Carlos Gutiérrez

Carlos G. Gutiérrez is the President’s Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at California State University Los Angeles. He is a synthetic organic chemist, with interests at the interface of organic, inorganic and biological chemistry. Currently, he and his students design and synthesize molecular species useful as probes to study the details of iron acquisition, transport, and utilization by bacteria.

Along with colleagues, he has provided many opportunities for Cal State LA science students to experience career enhancement through intense participation in research projects directed by faculty mentors. He has participated in obtaining $35 million in research and research training grants over the past 25 years to support the activities of students in his research group and also 25 other laboratories on campus. He has directed the Cal State LA Minority Access to Research Careers (MARC) program since 1978 and the Minority Biomedical Research Support (MBRS) program since 1992. He is very proud of the achievements of the many Cal State LA MARC and MBRS students who have participated in these programs.

Gutiérrez has served on several standing and ad hoc peer review committees of the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. In 1995, he was appointed to serve on the National Advisory Council to the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, NIH. He has served on the National Research Council’s Advisory Committee to the Office of Scientific and Engineering Personnel, and is currently a member of its Board on Higher Education Workforce. He is a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Committee on Opportunities in Science, the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation Undergraduate Scholars Grant Advisory Panel, the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation Grant Advisory Committee, the American Chemical Society (ACS) Committee on Professional Training, and the ACS Committee on Minority Affairs.

Significant honors to Gutiérrez include an Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Award in animation in 1973 for the film “Antimatter” that he and Lewis Hall made as undergraduates, and which combined his interest in art and science. He received the Cal State LA Outstanding Professor Award in 1984, and the Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi Distinguished Scholar Award in 1985. Gutierrez was among the first honored by President Clinton through a Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring, at a White House ceremony in 1996. The following year, he received the Anthony J. Andreoli Biotechnology Service Research Award from the California State University Program for Education and Research in Biotechnology. In 2000, he was named a “Giant In Science” by the Quality Education for Minorities Network, and received the 23-campus California State University System Wang Family Excellence – Outstanding Faculty in the Natural Sciences Award. More recently, he received the 2001 American Chemical Society Award for Encouraging Disadvantaged Students into Careers in the Chemical Sciences; was named a National Associate of the National Research Council and the National Academy of Sciences, 2001; and was inducted as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2002. He is particularly proud of the “Honored Faculty Award” given him by the Associated Students of California State University, Los Angeles in 1996.

He holds a B.S. degree in chemistry from UCLA (1971) and a Ph.D. in synthetic organic chemistry from the University of California, Davis (1975) for work with Professor R. Bryan Miller on the preparation of the Himachalene family of sesquiterpenes.

He served as a CCST Council Member from 2003-2008.