Diana S. Natalicio
Vice Chair
National Science Board
Linguistics

B.S., Spanish summa cum laude, St. Louis University, 1961
M.A., University of Texas at Austin, 1964
Ph.D., University of Texas at Austin, 1969

Diana S. Natalicio was born in St. Louis, Missouri, and attended the University of Texas at Austin, where she was awarded the Ph.D. degree in linguistics in 1969. She spent a year as a Fulbright scholar in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and held a Gulbenkian fellowship in Lisbon, Portugal. In 1971 she joined the faculty of the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) and two years later was named chair of the Modern Languages Department. She became dean of liberal arts in 1977 and vice president for academic affairs in 1984. In 1988 she assumed her current position as president of UTEP.

Natalicio serves on the boards of the Sandia Corporation, Trinity Industries, the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering, RAND Institute on Education and Training, and the Nature Conservancy of Texas. She was president of the board of the American Association for Higher Education in 1995-1996. She also has served on the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Advisory Council, the U.S.-Mexico Commission for Educational and Cultural Exchange, the Fogarty International Center at the National Institutes of Health, and the Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans.

Natalicio received the Harold W. McGraw, Jr. Prize in Education in 1997. She was appointed to the National Science Board in 1994, served as, from 1996 to 2000, reappointed to the Board in 2000, and elected Vice Chair in 2002.

Last Modified: Aug 21, 2002