Adriana Darielle Mejía Briscoe

Biography

Adriana Darielle Mejía Briscoe, Ph.D., is Distinguished Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of California, Irvine. A scholar in the field of evolutionary biology, Briscoe has spent over two decades studying the molecular evolution and physiology of color vision in butterflies, examining how visual systems adapt to ecological pressures and shape behavior. She received a Ph.D. in Biology from Harvard University in 1998, where she held a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Predoctoral Fellowship.

Briscoe is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is a Fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the California Academy of Sciences, the Royal Entomological Society, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She received the Distinguished Scientist Award from the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science and the Inclusiveness Diversity Equity Access (IDEA) Award from the American Society of Naturalists, Society for the Study of Evolution, and Society of Systematic Biologists.

Briscoe has secured over $6 million in research funding from agencies including the National Science Foundation, the Human Frontier Science Program, and the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation. She served on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology from 2019 to 2024 and was a lead investigator of the Heliconius Genome Consortium from 2008 to 2012. Her research has been featured in outlets including The New York Times, NPR, PBS/NOVA, and BBC Radio 4.

Education

• Ph.D. in Biology, Harvard University, 1998
• M.A. in Philosophy, Stanford University, 1993
• B.S. in Biological Sciences, Stanford University, 1993
• B.A. in Philosophy, Stanford University, 1992

Distinctions

• Elected Member, National Academy of Sciences, 2024
• Elected Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2022
• Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2017
• Overseas Visiting Scholar, St. John's College, University of Cambridge, U.K., 2012-2018
• Fellow, John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, 2021
• Fellow, Royal Entomological Society, 2018
• Wisconsin Evolution Director's Lecture, J.F. Crow Institute for the Study of Evolution, University of Wisconsin, Madison, 2025
• Inclusiveness Diversity Equity Access (IDEA) Award, American Society of Naturalists/Society for the Study of Evolution/Society of Systematic Biologists, 2021
• Distinguished Scientist Award, Society for the Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science, 2018
• Fellow, California Academy of Sciences, 2018