L. Gabriel Navar chosen for inaugural faculty mentoring award

Called the “ideal candidate” and the “quintessential faculty mentor” by his colleagues, L. Gabriel Navar has been chosen for the inaugural Oliver Fund Award for Excellence in Faculty Mentoring at Tulane University. A 25-year Tulane faculty member, he is professor and chair of the physiology department.

The award was established this year to honor the commitment of senior faculty members to the success of junior faculty members and Tulane as a whole through mentoring, said provost Michael Bernstein, who announced the award winner.

Navar will receive the award, including a $5,000 prize, at the School of Medicine Ivy Day on May 17 during Commencement Week. He also will be recognized during the school's diploma ceremony on May 18.

Bernstein said Navar has “greatly contributed to universitywide goals for professional mentoring that include increasing career success of our junior faculty, greater institutional stability, success in retaining valued faculty, supporting the preservation of intellectual property and encouraging the pursuit of faculty diversity.”

Nominated by five members of the physiology faculty and chosen by a selection committee, Navar also received multiple letters of support for the award.

He is principal investigator of a multiyear Center of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) grant to the Tulane Hypertension and Renal Center of Excellence. Earlier phases of the national COBRE funding have provided support for the work of 16 junior faculty members as well as postdoctoral fellows, graduate students and medical students. The Tulane center received its first COBRE funding in 2002, phase two of funding in 2007 and continued funding in 2012 for five more years.

Bernstein said Navar has demonstrated a lifelong commitment to faculty mentoring that is evident in his success in securing and maintaining the COBRE faculty mentoring award.