UC Davis postdoc Edwin Solares of the Department of Evolution and Ecology
UC Davis postdoc Edwin Solares of the Department of Evolution and Ecology, where he researches crop population genomics, is part of a prestigious fellowship program aimed at cultivating scientists and scholars from underrepresented backgrounds for careers in the professoriate. (Robert Durell/UC Office of the President)

Growing our own: Developing a faculty that reflects California

  • by Sherri M Mann

As a community college transfer student who grew up in poverty and is now pursuing his postdoctoral research, Edwin Solares hopes to show the students he mentors how far they can go. 

Edwin is a UC President’s Pre-Professoriate Postdoctoral Fellow interested in applying computational solution to problems in genetics and genomics and currently working with EVE faculty member Jeffrey Ross-Ibarra. 

Solares has earned a Ph.D. from UC Irvine as one of 29 inaugural fellows in the UC President’s Pre-Professoriate Fellowship Program, which provides Ph.D. students from underrepresented backgrounds opportunities and resources to help launch their academic careers.

In an associated article, all of UC joins UC Davis in AAAS SEA Change for faculty diversity; and UC Davis earned SEA Change bronze award certification in 2019.