Neurobiologist Steven K. Fisher, professor of molecular, cellular, and developmental biology, on March 8 received the highest honor the Academic Senate can bestow on its members, the title of Faculty Research Lecturer. Last year’s recipient, Howard Giles, professor of communication, presented him to the Faculty Legislature.

Fisher, who has been a UCSB faculty member since 1971, is an internationally acknowledged expert in diseases of the retina, the light-sensitive tissue inside the eye that interfaces with the brain via the optic nerve.

He and colleagues at the Neuroscience Research Institute (NRI) have pioneered the use of oxygen therapy to slow or reverse the negative effects of retinal detachment.

Giles cited a number of scholars and distinguished scientists who praised Fisher for, among other things, his laboratory, which “has almost single-handedly laid the basis for our current understanding of the condition now known as retinopathy of detachment.” Another scholar said, “He is, simply, the best.”

When Fisher, who founded and ran the NRI for 16 years, was awarded the Von Sallmann Prize for vision research and ophthalmology in 2002 his comments then shed light on what drives him: “My career has been built around a desire to contribute to our understanding of the organization and function of the vertebrate retina,” he said. “Although this has taken me along various satisfying paths, my most current and perhaps most satisfying emphasis is on the biology of induced retinal detachment.”

The award committee, Giles noted, was impressed by Fisher’s contributions to the campus beyond his research prowess. Besides his service to his department and to UCSB he has devoted time to the Chancellor’s Isla Vista Commission. He has also “been an outstanding teacher and mentor,” Giles said, teaching a lower division class of more than 600 students for many years and mentoring some 25 graduate students.