SURFING FLIES

Professor Lengyel likes to read detective novels. "Scientists are like detectives,” she says. “They like to solve the puzzle that has been presented to them.” She studies how specific genes control early development in fruit flies. Understanding how genes influence development in a fruit fly helps us learn more about complex human genetic disorders. As well as teaching and doing research, she mentors a large group of undergraduates, graduates and postdoctoral fellows.

"I was shy as a young person. In high school, I won a science contest and I liked math. That was the beginning of my science career.”

Judith Lengyel was a professor in the Molecular and Cellular and Developmental Biology Department at the University of California, Los Angeles.