2023-24 Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellows

Diana Aguilar Gómez earned her BS in genomic science from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) and her PhD in computational biology from the University of California, Berkeley. Her research interests are conservation genomics and adaptive population genomics. Her dissertation focused on adaptation, diversity, and evolution in different vertebrates. While conducting her PhD research, Diana received the Fulbright García-Robles Fellowship and the UC MEXUS-CONACYT Fellowship. As a UCLA Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow, Dr. Aguliar Gómez will work with Kirk Lohmueller in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. Their research will focus on developing methods for detecting structural variants (SVs) in genomes. They will apply these methods to endangered species to understand how SVs shape these species’ genomes’ diversity and affect survival probabilities.

Bernard Gordillo Brockmann holds a PhD in historical musicology from the University of California, Riverside. His research interests include music, sound, and politics in Latin America, and the region’s historical relations with the United States. He is working on a book project entitled “Canto de Marte: Art Music, Popular Culture, and United States Intervention in Nicaragua” (under contract with Oxford University Press), which examines the cultural impact of U.S. intervention in Central America during the early twentieth century. As a Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow, he will focus on sound and colonization in California undertaken in consultation with California Indian scholars, leaders, and community members. Gordillo will be mentored by Benjamin Madley, professor in the Department of History.