M. Anne Campbell Spence '66

Spence earned a B.A. in biology from Grinnell in 1966. After earning a Ph.D. in human genetics from the University of Hawaii in 1969, she received the National Institutes of Health postdoctoral fellowship at the University of North Carolina. She is professor emerita in the Department of Pediatrics, University of California-Irvine. Among her positions, she served as associate dean in the graduate division at University of California-Los Angeles and vice chancellor of academic programs at the UC-Irvine. An active teacher, her research in human genetics has focused on neurological and physical birth defects. She has been a member of the American Society of Human Genetics, the Genetics Society of America, and the Behavioral Genetics Association. In 1979, Spence received the Woman of Science Award at UCLA, and Grinnell awarded her an honorary degree in 1999. In 2001, she received the annual leadership award from the International Genetic Epidemiology Society.