Dr. Eugene V. Cota-Robles was born on July 13, 1926 in Nogales, Arizona, to Mexican immigrant school teachers from Pueblo Nuevo, Sonora, Mexico. In 1944 he enlisted for the U.S. Navy, serving as a signalman aboard the U.S.S. Baltimore during World War II. After being discharged he received his BS (1950) in Bacteriology from the University of Arizona. He obtained his PhD (1956) in Microbiology from the University of California Davis for his research on nitrogen-fixing bacteria and virus replication. After a postdoc at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, he took positions as the Director of the Educational Opportunity Program at UC Riverside and Chairman of the Department of Microbiology at Penn State University.
In 1973, he returned to California, accepting the position of Academic Vice Chancellor at UC Santa Cruz. He also received an invitation to the first union of Chicano and Native American Scientist hosted in Albuquerque, New Mexico. This organization would go on to be named the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS) where Eugene would be voted in as the following President from 1975 to 1976.
Dr. Cota-Robles held several leadership positions in other organizations. He was a Member of the National Science Board and served on the board of the California Achievement Council, MESA (Mathematics, Engineering, Science Achievement), and the Ford Foundation. He stayed at UC Santa Cruz until 1986 when he became Assistant to the Vice President for the UC system until his retirement in 1991. He held an emeritus position at the UC Santa Cruz until his death in 2012.
References:
- https://senate.universityofcalifornia.edu/_files/inmemoriam/html/eugenecota-robles.html
- https://link.ucop.edu/2012/09/25/in-memoriam-microbiologist-and-educator-cota-robles/
- https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/santacruzsentinel/name/eugene-cota-robles-obituary?id=19205426
- https://www.santacruzsentinel.com/obituaries/eugene-h-cotarobles/
- https://www.sacnas.org/history-of-sacnas
