Congratulations to Nicole Valenzuela for her election to the 2021 class of 564 new AAAS Fellows. Each year, the AAAS recognizes science faculty because of their efforts to advance science applications that are deemed scientifically or socially distinguished.

Dr. Valenzuela was nominated for "distinguished contributions to evolutionary biology, with a special focus on understanding the enigmatic phenomenon of temperature-dependent sex determination.” She is an evolutionary biologist broadly interested in understanding how ecology affects the structure, function and evolution of the genome and its role in the development and evolution of complex traits, such as sexual development. While Valenzuela continues to study temperature-dependent sex determination, her current work also encompasses research on the evolution of sex chromosomes, genome organization and the development of functional genomic tools for turtles to study biomedical and conservation issues.