Pamela Padilla

Vice President for Research and Innovation

Hurley Administration Bldg Room 210

Division Information

The Division of Research and Innovation promotes research, scholarship and creative activities that engage faculty, research scientists, students and external collaborative partners. The division supports faculty in the following areas:

Grants and Contracts Administration
Research Integrity and Compliance
Innovation and Commercialization
Research Computing Services
Research Development

Bio Information

Dr. Pamela Padilla was appointed vice president for research and innovation in June 2022. She joined UNT in 2002 and is a professor of biological sciences. Dr. Padilla previously served as dean of the College of Science and associate dean for research and graduate studies in the College of Science. After serving one year as interim, she was permanently appointed UNT’s associate vice president for research and innovation in October 2019. In 2010, she earned the UNT Early Career Award for Research and Creativity, and she was a Faculty Leadership Fellow from 2015 to 2016.

Dr. Padilla’s research, which has been continually supported by either the National Institutes of Health or the National Science Foundation, focuses on how environmental and dietary stress affects living organisms at the cellular, genetic, and molecular levels as a means to model human health issues such as ischemia and diabetes. She has earned numerous fellowships and grants, including an NSF CAREER award. Her lead of an NIH T32 training grant has provided additional support for Ph.D. student training.

Dr. Padilla is the current president and former treasurer and a member of the board of directors of SACNAS, the Society for Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science, the largest STEM diversity organization in the country. She also was a Howard Hughes Medical Institute and SACNAS Advanced Leadership Institute Fellow in 2017, received a Science magazine Prize for Inquiry-Based Instruction in 2012, and was a National Academy of Sciences Kavli Frontiers of Science Fellow in 2008.

Education:

NSF Post-Doctoral Fellow, Fred Hutchison Cancer Research Center
Ph.D. in biology, University of New Mexico
B.S. in biology, University of New Mexico