Division of Research and Innovation

Vice President For Research And Innovation Pamela Padilla

Pamela Padilla, vice president for research and innovation, succeeded Mark McLellan upon his retirement on June 5, 2022.

A professor of biological sciences, Padilla joined UNT in 2002. She previously worked as associate dean for research and graduate studies in the College of Science and was permanently appointed UNT’s associate vice president for research and innovation in October 2019, after serving one year as interim. In 2010, she earned the UNT Early Career Award for Research and Creativity, and she was a Faculty Leadership Fellow from 2015 to 2016. Prior to being named VPRI, Padilla served as the dean of the College of Science.

Padilla’s research, which has been continually supported by either the National Institutes of Health or the National Science Foundation, focuses on how environmental and dietary stress affects living organisms at the cellular, genetic, and molecular levels as a means to model human health issues such as ischemia and diabetes. She has earned numerous fellowships and grants, including an NSF CAREER award.

Padilla is the current president and former treasurer and member of the board of directors of SACNAS, the Society for Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science, the largest STEM diversity organization in the country. She also was a Howard Hughes Medical Institute and SACNAS Advanced Leadership Institute Fellow in 2017, received a Science magazine Prize for Inquiry-Based Instruction in 2012 and was a National Academy of Sciences Kavli Frontiers of Science Fellow in 2008.

Padilla earned her Ph.D. in biology from the University of New Mexico, conducted her post-doctoral research at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington, and was a visiting scholar at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California.

Associate Vice President For Research And Innovation Aaron Roberts

Aaron Roberts, professor of environmental toxicology in the College of Science and director of the Advanced Environmental Research Institute (AERI), serves as associate vice president of research.

Prior to his appointment as AVP, Roberts spent the last two years as the director of AERI. He is considered an expert on the fate and effects of chemical contaminants in freshwater and marine ecosystems. Roberts’ research ranges from investigations of the impacts of oil spills on fish and shellfish to the accumulation of industrial chemicals in fur seals in the northern Pacific. His research group has been funded by federal and state agencies as well as the private sector.

Roberts earned his bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of Missouri and his master’s and doctorate in zoology from Miami-Ohio University. He completed his postdoctoral training in environmental toxicology at Clemson University. He received the UNT Decker Scholar Award in 2021 and is a member of the Endowment Board of Trustees for the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry.

As associate vice president, his portfolio includes overseeing the management of UNT’s shared instrumentation facilities across campus, working with advisory groups and directors of each facility and assisting with the development, approval and implementation of partnership agreements with other universities, national labs and industry. Additionally, Roberts is heavily involved in research development training and limited submissions, amongst other duties.