Clifford P. Kubiak
Professor of Chemistry & Biochemistry

Clifford P. and Pamela P. Kubiak recently announced an estate gift to endow a fund to support graduate student fellowships in UCSD’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry.

The endowment fund will be instituted in their names to support fellowships for students pursuing a Ph.D. in one of the following disciplines: inorganic chemistry, physical chemistry, organic chemistry or biochemistry. “These are the students of the future and this is where the emphasis should be placed,” said Cliff Kubiak.
Their ties to UCSD both as researchers and educators in the field of chemistry are why the Kubiaks chose UCSD for this endowment. Clifford Kubiak holds the Harold C. Urey Chair in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and was departmental chair from 2002-2006. “We recruited close to twenty-two new faculty to the department during that period of time and there does not need to be anything more to explain than that UCSD is the place for the future”.

“Education and research at UCSD is such a positive environment to grow and learn state-of-the-art technology. When I was offered two appointments, one with the University of Chicago, which is one of the most prominent schools in the country and the other with UCSD, I chose UCSD because I knew it would be the place you would absolutely want to be.”

“Education and research at UCSD is such a positive environment to grow and learn state-of-the-art technology. ”

Pamela Kubiak, now retired, was an information researcher with Pfizer Pharmaceuticals in San Diego for eight years. She played an instrumental role in the donation of scientific equipment from Pfizer Global Research and Development to create the Pfizer Undergraduate Teaching Laboratory, which is housed in the Natural Sciences Building. “Pfizer was very excited to go the distance in providing a wonderful laboratory for undergraduate students,” stated Pamela Kubiak.

The Kubiaks benefited from competitive fellowships while attending Brown and Emory. “It was very important to me and a major recognition when the chairman of the department called me into his office and told me that the faculty had voted to provide me with a fellowship to support me until I completed my thesis while attending the University of Rochester in New York,” recalled Professor Kubiak.

Kubiak has served as faculty representative on the UCSD Foundation for a three-year term. “If there are ways to support the research endeavor that leverage federal funds, then more emphasis should be placed on supporting graduate student fellowships. This helps the university and in turn makes our departments and their faculty more competitive.”

“If there are ways to support the research endeavor that leverage federal funds, then more emphasis should be placed on supporting graduate student fellowships. This helps the university and in turn makes our departments and their faculty more competitive.”

“In my varied experiences at the University of Rochester in New York, as a postdoctoral fellow at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), faculty member at Purdue University for fifteen years and as a visiting professor at the University of Chicago for one quarter, it was apparant that there were many more graduate fellowships than we have at UCSD,” stated Kubiak.

“The great thing about American graduate education is the amount of growth that takes place when a student enters as a novice and five years later can become a world expert and know more than his/her advisor,” he said. “I gain a large satisfaction in my close working relationships with my own graduate students. There are a lot of talented students out there who can benefit from fellowships."

“The great thing about American graduate education is the amount of growth that takes place when a student enters as a novice and five years later can become a world expert and know more than his/her advisor,” he said. “I gain a large satisfaction in my close working relationships with my own graduate students. There are a lot of talented students out there who can benefit from fellowships."

“I can remember my days in college as a postgraduate at MIT. You could just walk into the offices of prominent researchers in the country. They were accessible and you would stand in awe that you were rubbing shoulders with the most important scientists of our times. That really had an impact on me and provided me a foundation in my studies and research. In return this was an important factor in our decision to provide an endowment for graduate student fellowships.”

“The personal contact, reaching out and trying to encourage more students to embrace science as other countries are doing was the catalyst in our decision to provide this endowment for student fellowships,” stated Pamela Kubiak. “We wanted to make a difference in a few students’ lives in the hope that this will attract outstanding students and support them while they are making significant contributions to the field of chemistry and biochemistry. We want to create the best pool of talent we possibly can.”