Monica Alfaro Welling ’84 Awarded as Lauds & Laurels Distinguished Alumni

Monica Alfaro Welling ’84 will be awarded by the University of California, Irvine Alumni Association at the 2023 Lauds & Laurels ceremony! Lauds & Laurels is the oldest awards ceremony at UC Irvine — entering its 52nd year — and the highest honor given by the UCI Alumni Association. Welling is among 16 Distinguished Alumni who will be honored at the event. 

Recipients of this award are nominated and chosen for supporting the goals of UCI and the Alumni Association through campus initiatives and their professional pursuits, particularly in research, teaching, and public service.

Each honoree represents a different school within UCI, and Welling will be awarded as the alumni representative of the School of Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences at this year’s ceremony. She earned her bachelor’s degree in biological sciences and economics from UCI and has an MBA from the University of Southern Denmark. She serves on the advisory council for Founding Dean Jan Hirsch and supports UCI Health and the Susan & Henry Samueli College of Health Sciences as a member of the Leaders in Health Society (LIHS). 

Her career has spanned over 25 years in biopharma product development and commercialization. She is the Co-Founder and Managing Director of Atheln, Inc. and mother to her three children (“I consider them my legacy, kind of ‘who Monica is,’” she said of her kids). She is also involved in an array of philanthropic initiatives.

After living in Denmark for several years, where she worked at Novo Nordisk and started her family, Welling returned to Orange County to join Allergan. Since coming back to California, her career path has intertwined with giving back to the Latino community and returning to UCI.

Dean Hirsch and Welling met when she was working at Allergan, where she was the Senior Director of Global Strategic Marketing for BOTOX and was part of the team that launched the product for cosmetic purposes, chronic migraine treatment, and other therapeutic uses. She went on to be recruited by a startup company before going into consulting, and about 14 years ago, co-founded AtheIn, Inc.

Beyond her professional accomplishments, Welling is passionate about philanthropy, an interest that began during her time in Girl Scouts — she also served as a Girl Scout leader and Eagle Scout mentor in her kids’ troops — and was inspired by her mother’s own commitment to helping others. At UCI, she was the head of philanthropy for her sorority, Alpha Chi Omega. 

While her philanthropy efforts have involved a variety of organizations, her focus has always been on helping the Latino community. Some highlights include her role as Chairman of the Board for The Whole Child, a Whittier-based organization that provides mental health services and transitional housing to children and families, and serving on the Board of Directors for Wellnest LA, where initiatives focus on helping 18-26 year old Hispanic and Black people who need additional support when moving from the foster system into adulthood.

She serves as a professional mentor to minorities and women and hopes to inspire young people to pursue careers in life sciences, working with organizations such as OCTANE, Biocom California, California Life Sciences, Latinos in Bio, SoCalBio, and the Orange County Alliance.

“One of my passions is trying to increase awareness of the opportunities in life sciences and breaking down some of the perceived barriers for minorities, because that’s still a very underrepresented group within the life sciences, especially once you get into middle and upper management and also in the C-suite,” she said.

She is grateful to have been able to see the impact of her work.

“I was invited to participate in a fireside chat about women in leadership in the pharmaceutical industry, and unbeknownst to me, there was a group of young Latina women in the audience. They came up to me afterwards and said that this was the first time they’d ever seen a Latina woman who had achieved as much as I had,” she shared. “It was notable for them to hear a Latina woman be open and honest about the challenges and struggles of trying to balance a life, family, and career. The acknowledgment of the work that I’m doing is something that’s nice to have, but that’s not the reason I do it. I do it because I truly believe that’s what needs to be done. I’m at a point in my life where I want to give as much back as I can.”

Her support of the Latino community is an important aspect of a personal desire for Welling: “I wanted to reconnect with my Latin roots because I thought I was very European, having lived in Europe for so long. I really felt I had become half Danish. I had all these pivotal milestones while I was there.” 

“I felt a very strong alignment in values in Denmark,” she continued, stating that she didn’t face discrimination as a woman or Latina in the country, an issue she sees confronted by many in the U.S. when building their careers.

While she credits that experience with instilling confidence in her, she emphasizes that her entrepreneurial spirit, intelligence, desire to help others, and commitment to education came from her parents. Both her mother and father attended California State University, Los Angeles, where Welling currently teaches courses for first-time entrepreneurs.

“We got our intellect and our passion for learning from my dad, and we got our toughness, our dry street smarts from my mom,” she said. “As I got older, I felt I wanted to reestablish my identity with the Alfaro part of Monica. I’ve always kept my middle name Alfaro. It’s really important because I felt that was a key component of who I am, who I was, and who I continue to be. And I think as part of that journey, it was natural to start to reconnect with UCI.”

As part of the Dean’s Leadership Council, she emphasizes the importance of increasing diversity in the School of Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences and creating curriculums that ensure all students are able to provide quality treatment to all people as pharmacists.

She stated, “I was very intrigued and attracted by the opportunity to join an advisory group for a school at UCI that was new. I saw this as an opportunity to contribute in a phase where the school was still solidifying its vision and strategy. There’s still a lack of diversity in the School of Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences, and we’ve talked about how we can improve the balance and have a more diverse student population. I think it’s important, as you start to educate pharmacists and those that go work in the community, that they can reflect the faces of the community that they’re dealing with.”

For Welling, reception of the Lauds & Laurels award represents a recognition of all she’s worked for since leaving UCI — and a reassurance about her return to the UCI community.

“I made the right choice in giving UCI a second chance and reconnecting with the university,” she said. “It enables me to achieve some of my goals, like mentorship and being a role model. Being nominated for this award as an alum of UCI and as a Latina, it means a lot. Not for me personally, but for the potential impact on others — knowing that they can also strive for these types of opportunities.”

This year, the Lauds & Laurels ceremony will be held at the Hyatt Regency Irvine on October 26th. If you are interested in learning more about Lauds & Laurels and this year’s honorees, visit engage.alumni.uci.edu/s/lauds.