Francisco J. Ayala

Francisco José Ayala Pereda was born on March 12, 1934. He was a Spanish-American evolutionary biologist, philosopher, and Catholic priest who was a longtime faculty member at the University of California, Irvine, and the University of California, Davis.

He was a Dominican priest, ordained in 1960 and leaving the priesthood that same year. After graduating from the University of Salamanca, he moved to the United States in 1961 to study for a Ph.D. at Columbia University. There, he studied for his doctorate under Theodosius Dobzhansky, graduating in 1964. He became a US citizen in 1971.

He died from a heart attack on March 3, 2023, a week before his 89th birthday.