The appointment of Fernando Torres-Gil -- currently acting dean of the UCLA School of Public Affairs -- to the Los Angeles Board of Airport Commissioners has been confirmed. Torres-Gil, also a professor of social welfare and public policy at the School of Public Affairs, is one of six new commission members appointed by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and confirmed Sept. 6 by the Los Angeles City Council.

The six new members of the seven-member commission will oversee Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), Ontario International Airport, and the Van Nuys and Palmdale airports.

In selecting the new members, Villaraigosa said, "I looked for people who brought with them a passion for public service, the highest ethical standards, and a commitment to aviation security and safety and a shared view that we must expand our regional aviation system rather than relying on LAX alone."

Fernando Torres-Gil, a native of Salinas, Calif., also is associate dean of academic affairs and is the director for the UCLA Center for Policy Research on Aging at UCLA. He served as the first-ever assistant secretary of aging in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services during the Clinton administration and has expertise in the fields of health and long-term care, the politics of aging, social policy, ethnicity, and disability. He also served as staff director of the House of Representatives Select Committee on Aging (1985-87), where he administered the legislative and oversight activities of the largest committee in the U.S. Congress; was special assistant to then-Secretary of Health and Human Services Patricia Roberts Harris (1979-80); and was White House fellow and special assistant to Joseph Califano, secretary of health, education and welfare (1978-79).

At the local level, Torres-Gil was the vice president of the Los Angeles City Planning Commission (1989-93) and served as a member of the Harbor Commission that oversees the Port of Los Angeles, and the Taxi Commission (1996-97) for the city of Los Angeles.

Torres-Gil earned his B.A. in political science (1970) graduating with honors from San Jose State University, and an M.S.W. (1972) and a Ph.D. (1976) in social policy, planning and research from the Heller Graduate School in Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University.

The UCLA School of Public Affairs was founded in 1994 to educate the next generation of practitioners and academic researchers in the "problem-solving professions": public policy, social welfare and urban planning. The school produces outstanding basic and applied policy and practice research in these fields and provides timely policy advice to policy-makers in the public, private and nonprofit sectors. With more than 75 faculty members, more than 400 graduate students, a popular undergraduate minor program, nine research centers and a senior fellows program, the school is one of the largest and most dynamic of its kind in the nation.