Professor of Cell and Developmental Biology David Weisblat has received the UC Berkeley Leon A. Henkin Citation for Distinguished Service, along with Professor Denise Herd of the School of Public Health.

Weisblat is being recognized for his steadfast and enduring efforts to promote diveristy within the MCB department and on campus. Since 2007, Weisblat has been the Equity Advisor for MCB as well as the faculty sponsor of the UCB Society for Advancing Chicanos and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS local chapter). Among his other activities, since 2006, he has served on local and national diversity panels, traveled throughout the U.S. and Puerto Rico to engage students from diverse backgrounds in discussions about research opportunities and careers, served to recruit minorities into various research programs on campus, and directly mentored many students in his research projects. 

From the Academic Senate...

The Leon Henkin Citation for Distinguished Service is awarded by the Committee on Diversity, Equity, and Campus Climate (DECC) of the Berkeley Division of the Academic Senate. It is given in recognition of an “exceptional commitment to the educational development of students from groups who are underrepresented in the academy.”

Leon Henkin was an Emeritus Professor of Mathematics who was a founder of the Committee on Special Scholarships in 1963, a Committee of the Berkeley Division of the Academic Senate whose goal was to enable students from underrepresented groups to attend and excel at the University of California, Berkeley. Professor Henkin remained a member of this same but renamed Committee on Student Diversity and Academic Development until his death. (SDAD merged with the Status of Women and Ethnic Minorities to form the DECC in 2014). Professor Henkin worked tirelessly throughout his career to increase equity and access to higher education, and to promote the academic, personal and professional success of Berkeley students from groups traditionally underrepresented in the academy. He was the first recipient of this Citation from the Academic Senate, and the Citation bears his name as testimony to his distinguished service.