Adapted from UCLA Newsroom
Alan Grinell, a UCLA distinguished professor of integrative biology and physiology, is one of four UCLA faculty members elected this year to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the nation’s most prestigious honorary societies. Nearly 250 artists, scholars, scientists and leaders in the public, nonprofit and private sectors were chosen for membership this year.
Professor Grinnell is an authority on bats and their use of echolocation — the process by which they emit high-frequency sounds and listen for return echoes to orient themselves in their environment and hunt for prey — as a substitute for vision. Much of his research has focused on mapping precisely how bats’ brains and nervous systems process this auditory information, and his findings have helped inspire advances in fields like sonar, robotics and medical imaging. In addition to his work in animal behavior and sensory biology, Grinnell has had a long-standing interest in the art of the ancient Americas and is the author of “Painting the Cosmos: Art and Iconography of the Ceramics of Ancient Panama.” He is a member of the Brain Research Institute at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.
Read the full UCLA Newsroom story here: https://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/ucla-faculty-american-academy-of-arts-and-sciences-2025