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| Dr. Brenda Claiborne |
Brenda Claiborne is the new Dean of Arts and Sciences
Dr. Brenda J. Claiborne is Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and Professor of Biology at the University of New Mexico. She also holds a secondary faculty appointment in the Department of Neurosciences in the School of Medicine at the University of New Mexico.
She received her baccalaureate degree in Zoology from the University of California, Berkeley, her master's degree in Biology from the University of Oregon, and her doctoral degree in Neurobiology from the University of California, San Diego.
She was a postdoctoral fellow in Developmental Neurobiology at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. From 1986 to 2007, Dr. Claiborne served as a faculty member and administrator at the University of Texas at San Antonio, a Hispanic-serving institution with approximately 27,000 graduate and undergraduate students.
During her tenure at UTSA, she attained the rank of Professor of Biology and served as Dean of Graduate Studies and Associate Vice President for Research. In the latter position, she was responsible for all graduate programs and research development on campus, as well as for research centers and institutes.
She was instrumental in establishing six new graduate degree programs and played an important role in increasing graduate enrollments and research funding.
Dr. Claiborne also served as founding Director of the Institute for Aging Research at UTSA. As a faculty member, Dr. Claiborne has taught undergraduate and graduate courses, has participated in minority student training programs, and has mentored numerous students in research.
She has served on review panels for the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation and has been a member of three committees of the Society for Neuroscience, including the Minority Education, Training and Professional Advancement Committee, the Education Committee and the Finance Committee.
Dr. Claiborne has received funding for her research from the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board and the Office of Naval Research. She and her colleagues recently demonstrated that the environment influences brain development in very young animals and that estrogen improves learning and alters neuron structure in both young and aged rats.
Her research efforts are currently focused on elucidating how neurons change in the aged brain and on discovering the molecular basis of 'left brain/right brain' differences during development.