Senior Fellow Gutiérrez Works to Send Policy Fellows to Sacramento

CCST Senior Fellow Carlos Gutiérrez has long been known for providing opportunities for students to experience career enhancement through intense participation in research projects directed by faculty mentors. It is no surprise, then, that he has been actively involved in CCST’s newest program, providing professional development opportunities of a different sort to scientists and engineers through the California Science & Technology Policy Fellowships, the first class of which will begin in November 2009.

The fellowships will enable fellows to work hands on with policy-makers in Sacramento to develop solutions to complex scientific and technical issues facing California through their interaction with the legislative process, and are intended for people who want to learn the public policy decision making process that affects many science and technology related issues.

Gutiérrez, a former CCST Council member, 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. Along with colleagues, he has provided many opportunities for Cal State LA science students. 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 credited with having mentored over 200 students.

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 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, and was named a U.S. Professor of the Year in 2005 by the Carnegie Foundation and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education.