Environmental Sciences Scholar Awarded Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellowship

The two-year fellowship includes an annual stipend, plus up to $5,000 annually for research and travel expenses. The second year of funding is contingent on scholarly productivity and participation in the program’s events. As part of the application process, fellows identify faculty members who will serve as their mentors for the duration of the fellowship. 

Quezada’s research focuses on how electrochemically modified materials affect other materials, including carbon, steel and polymeric films. He is also interested in synthesizing graphene-based materials and leveraging electrochemistry to benefit the environment. At UCLA, he will be mentored by Eric Hoek, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering. Hoek is also the faculty director of the UCLA Sustainable LA Grand Challenge and a member of the California NanoSystems Institute and Institute of the Environment and Sustainability at UCLA.

In 2019, Quezada earned his Ph.D. in environmental sciences from the Instituto Potosino de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica, A.C. in Mexico. He received the Philip L. Walker Award from the American Carbon Society in 2016, which recognizes the best student poster presentation at the American Carbon Conferences. 

The fellowship program is open to postdoctoral candidates in all fields, with an emphasis on those whose research will contribute to diversity and equal opportunity at the University of California. Applicants must have a Ph.D. or equivalent terminal degree in their field by the start of the fellowship and first apply to the UC President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship Program (PPFP). Established in 1984, the program was originally designed to encourage women and students from underrepresented minority groups to pursue advanced studies at the University of California. Now, the program is open to postdoctoral scholars with backgrounds and perspectives that make them uniquely poised to pursue research that has the potential to positively impact underserved populations and address inequalities. 

Quezada’s selection as a UCLA Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow also makes him eligible for funding from the PPFP. 

Dannela Lagrimas contributed to this story.