Dr. Gene Block

Dr. Gene Block became chancellor of UCLA in summer 2007, taking the helm of a world-class institution comprising 37,000 students and 27,000 faculty and staff, with an annual budget of $3.7 billion. As chief executive officer, he oversees all aspects of the university's three-part mission of education, research and service.

He also holds appointments on the UCLA faculty in the department of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences in the David Geffen School of Medicine and in the department of physiological science in the College of Letters and Science.

Previously, Dr. Block served as Vice President and Provost of the University of Virginia, where he also held the Alumni Council Thomas Jefferson Professorship in Biology. With academic expertise in biological clocks, he conducts research on the neurobiology of circadian rhythms in higher organisms, leading a research lab funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

From 1991 to 2002, he directed the National Science Foundation's Science and Technology Center for Biological Timing. In 1997, he was named a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has invented a number of devices and holds a patent for a non-contact respiratory monitor for the prevention of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.

Chancellor Block joined the faculty of the University of Virginia in 1978 as an assistant professor of biology. He served as Vice Provost for Research from 1993 to 1998 and then as Vice President for Research and Public Service until his appointment as Vice President and Provost in 2001.

Dr. Block also headed an NIH graduate training program aimed at increasing the number of scientists from underrepresented groups. In 1998, he received the Commonwealth of Virginia's Outstanding Public Service Award for his work with Virginia's business community.

A native of Monticello, NY, Chancellor Block holds a bachelor's degree in psychology from Stanford University and a master's and Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Oregon. He also completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford, working with the late Colin Pittendrigh, "the father of biological timing" and distinguished biologist Donald Kennedy, who later served as president of Stanford.