UCI Professor to Join Clinton’s Committee on Science : Research: Francisco J. Ayala will be among those advising the President on the newest advancements and guiding federal spending on technology.
An acclaimed UC Irvine professor has been named to a committee that advises President Clinton on scientific advancement, UCI officials said Tuesday.
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Francisco J. Ayala, 60, one of UCI’s best-known researchers, will join 18 other top academics and industry leaders on the President’s Committee of Advisers on Science and Technology.
Clinton created the committee by executive order in November to guide how the federal government should spend money in technology, a White House spokesman said. It includes representatives from corporations such as Hewlett-Packard Co. and Monsanto Co., as well as university researchers.
At a news briefing last week, Clinton Administration officials announced the committee members and disclosed plans to increase the nation’s spending on science and technology research to a level similar to that of Germany and Japan.
“Probably not since the time of (Presidents) Kennedy or Johnson have we seen a similar direction,” Ayala said in an interview Tuesday. “It’s clear that there’s a connection . . . between the economic welfare of a nation and science.”
Ayala has experience in overseeing scientific research on a national basis. He currently serves as president of the American Assn. for the Advancement of Science, the world’s largest general scientific organization.
A professor of ecology, evolutionary biology and philosophy, Ayala was the first academic to be named a Bren Fellow at UCI in 1989, university spokesman Scott Nelson said. He is also director of the Bren Fellows program, a perpetual endowment created to attract the world’s foremost scholars to UCI.
Ayala, a former Roman Catholic priest who left the church to study genetics, was lured from UC Davis in 1987. He has written more than 400 articles and eight books.
“He’s one of our stars,” Nelson said.
Ayala has often battled creationists in his 29-year academic career. He served as a prime witness in a 1981 trial that resulted in the overturning of an Arkansas law forcing public school teachers to give equal time to the discussion of creationism and evolution.
A deep-voiced native of Madrid, Spain, Ayala said he is “reassured” by Clinton’s goals to increase resources for science research and promote partnerships between private industry and the public sector.
When asked about the direction of scientific research in the next few years, Ayala said he believes American scientists will pay renewed attention to cancer.
“The breakthroughs of the last two to three years make it clear there will be great payoffs in investing money into cancer,” he said.
Priorities will also include nanotechnology--creating very tiny scientific components--and cutting-edge communications networks, he said.
UCI students will still find Ayala’s name listed in course schedules this fall, despite restraints on his time.
“I don’t see my research and teaching (being) affected,” Ayala said. “I will be teaching introductory biology--it has nearly 1,500 students in it every year.”
In addition to Ayala, the President’s committee includes Mario J. Molina, a professor of environmental sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Molina, along with UCI researcher F. Sherwood Rowland, discovered that chlorofluorocarbons promote ozone depletion, Nelson said.
Other recently appointed committee members who teach in California are: Sally K. Ride, professor of physics at UC San Diego; John P. Holdren, professor of energy and resources at UC Berkeley; and Murray Gell-Mann, professor emeritus of theoretical physics at Cal Tech.
