Utpal Banerjee

Who is Utpal Banerjee?

Utpal Banerjee is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology at UCLA. He obtained his Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry from St. Stephen's College, Delhi University, India and obtained his Master of Science degree in Physical Chemistry from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, India. In 1984, he obtained a PhD in Chemistry from the California Institute of Technology where he was also a Postdoctoral Fellow in the laboratory of Seymour Benzer from 1984-1988.

Banerjee joined UCLA in 1988 as an Assistant Professor and attained the rank of Full Professor in 1994 in the Department of Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology. He became Vice-Chair of that department in 1998, Chair in 2001, and the Irving and Jean Stone Endowed Chair in Life Science in 2009. He has a joint appointment in the Department of Biological Chemistry at the David Geffen School of Medicine and is also Co-Director of the UCLA Broad Stem Cell Research Center. Banerjee teaches courses in genetics that encourage undergraduates to participate in research and he is the Director of the UCLA Interdepartmental Minor in Biomedical Research. He has also taught many genetics and developmental biology classes to undergraduate and graduate students. He is among 20 professors nationally to be awarded a $1 million grant by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute to creatively improve undergraduate science teaching.