About Blake Riggs

Blake Riggs is an associate professor and Associate Chair in the Department of Biology at San Francisco State University (SFSU).  Dr. Riggs grew up in South Los Angeles and attended UC Santa Cruz (UCSC) as an undergraduate. He was a Minority Access to Research Careers (MARC) scholar and received a Bachelors degree in Marine Biology, but was fascinated with the idea of cell division.  He received both his Master’s degree and PhD in Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology at UCSC on research involving role of intracellular membrane transport on cell division.  Dr. Riggs was postdoctoral fellow from 2006 – 2009 at UC Berkeley and joined the faculty at San Francisco State University in 2010.  Dr. Riggs received an NSF-CAREER award in 2015 to examine how cells generate diversity during development. Currently, Dr. Riggs’ laboratory studies the molecular pathway involved in organelle inheritance during cell division and how cells adopt a fate during development.