San Diego Metropolitan - 40 Under 40

When Dr. Lisa L. Bellavance isn’t writing or editing scientific journal articles or working on a book in her La Jolla office, sometimes she can be found volunteering at the San Diego Zoo.

A resident of San Diego for just under three years, Bellavance, age 32, has managed a Salk Institute Fellowship, a move from the lab into industry and a year-long engagement to be married. And, of course, actively volunteering at the San Diego Zoo.

There she chairs the decoration committee for the Center for the Reproduction of Endangered Species’ annual Celebration for the Critters fund-raiser. She works with the vendors who donate exhibits that can cost as much as $15,000.

The daughter of two chemists, Bellavance earned her doctorate at the University of Minnesota. She is a three-time recipient of the NRSA fellowship from the National Academies of Health, and has received professional recognition in the form of the MSI Recognition award.

Now at Genquest Biomedical Education Services, Bellevance’s move out of the lab and into marketing and scientific communication began at Molecular Systems Inc. She has been invited to serve as executive editor of the forthcoming book “Combinatorial Chemistry Methods and Protocols,” to be published in 2001 by Humana Press.

Bellavance has also authored more than a dozen articles appearing in national and international trade publications, developed marketing materials for a wide variety of scientific and medical products, and served as the editor of the quarterly magazine Solutions for Life Sciences.

Bellavance is a member of the Beta Beta Beta Honor Society, the Mortar Board Honor Society, the Phi Beta Phi Honor Society, the American Management Association, the American Medical Writers Association and the National Association of Female Executives.

“We’ll get married when things settle down,” says Bellavance and she thinks that will be before the end of the year. Her fiance, Dr. Justin A. English, nominated Bellavance for 40 Under Forty recognition. No doubt he believes he may have found an endangered species of his own.