Científico Latino
Alumni Scholarship

I earned a B.S. in Forensic Biology with minors in Chemistry and Bioinformatics from San José State University. As a proud first-generation Latina in STEM, I’m passionate about advancing equity in education and healthcare. I actively look for outreach opportunities to support this mission. I’m interested in combining diverse techniques and developing new methods to better visualize and understand molecular interactions to reveal how they shape pathways, structure, and disease mechanisms.

Danielle Amaegbo is a Chemical Biology Ph.D. student at Johns Hopkins studying therapeutic development, Synthetic Chemistry, and Biophysics. She has conducted award-winning research across multiple labs and national programs. Danielle also co-leads Put Me On, a platform expanding access to research opportunities for underrepresented students.

My name is Denise Yudovich, and I am a PhD student in the Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences department at the University of Colorado Boulder. I'm originally from Miami, FL, and received my BS in Astrophysics (with an English minor) at the University of Florida. I am interested in understanding the role of magnetic reconnection in the creation of stellar flares and Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs), as well as the implications these events have on exoplanet habitability.

Diana earned her Bachelor of Science in Bioengineering-Biotechnology at UC San Diego and is currently a first-year PhD student in the Cellular and Molecular Biosciences program at UC Irvine. She is interested in understanding how genetic variants contribute to disease development using genomic and epigenomic research methods. As a first-generation student and Oaxaqueña, she is committed to empowering and advocating for the next generation of STEM students.

Ellie Rahm Kim is a first year PhD student in the Bioinformatics and Integrative Genomics (BIG) program at Harvard University. Born and raised in Seoul, South Korea, she moved to the United States to attend college at The University of Texas at Austin. There, she obtained bachelors degree in Neuroscience and Government. Her current research interests are in developing novel computational methods to uncover insights from cancer patient sequencing datasets.

Emilie has Bachelor's degrees in Philosophy and Microbiology and Cell Science from the University of Florida, as well as a Master of Public Health degree from the University of West Florida. She is currently a PhD student in the Cancer Biology program at Emory University, where she hopes to continue exploring cancer genetics and health disparities.

Gabriel earned his B.S. in Neuroscience from Boston College, where he worked with Dr. Stefano Anzellotti, utilizing neural networks to study neural audio-visual integration. He was then a lab manager in Dr. Jon Freeman’s lab at Columbia, investigating facial stereotyping, the neural basis of social categorization, and high-dimensional social cognition. As a PhD student, he uses deep learning to model the social brain’s computational mechanisms and explores the dynamics of impression formation.

Jessica earned her B.A. in Integrative Biology from the UC Berkeley, and is currently completing her M.A. in Health Psychology at CSU Dominguez Hills. Her research examines the neural mechanisms through which early life stress shapes emotional granularity and interoceptive processes during adolescence. She plans to pursue a Ph.D. in Neuroscience to investigate the neurobiological pathways linking stress, interoception, and the gut-brain axis across development.

Jorge found his passion for education while working with underserved student populations as a tutor at his local community college. Once California law allowed DACA students to receive financial aid, Jorge was able to complete his Bachelor's degree in Chemistry at CSU Fullerton in 2023. Currently he does research in Chemical Education at Michigan State University, exploring how students' intuitive ideas about science can be leveraged to improve conceptual understanding

José Hernández-López is a first-year graduate student in mathematics focusing on Statistics and Computation at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee. Their research interests are computational statistics, bayesian inference, and machine learning application. As a first-generation, immigrant, and Latiné student, they are deeply passionate about access within mathematics, and statistics for underrepresented identities such as Latinés, queer people, first-gen and students from diverse incomes.

Julianna Gerold is a Ph.D. student in Integrative Neuroscience at Stony Brook University, mentored by Dr. Turhan Canli. She earned her B.A. in Psychology from Boston College and previously worked in clinical research at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Her research examines the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying vulnerability to financial exploitation via behavioral tasks and MRI.

Kitzia Solis is a PhD student in Integrative Neuroscience. Her current research focuses on utilizing advanced MRI techniques to study healthy brain aging and neurodegenerative diseases. She uses diffusion tractography approaches to precisely map white matter tracts. Kitzia earned her B.S. in Neuroscience from the University of California, Riverside where she spent years working as a research project manager exploring the microstructure of the locus coeruleus and corticospinal tract in aging.

Lindsey Sofia Aguilar (she/her) is a PhD student in Clinical Psychology at Arizona State University studying how substance use relates to mental and physical health outcomes across the lifespan. Her research examines biopsychosocial mechanisms underlying substance use and other risk-taking behaviors in adolescent and young adult populations. She is passionate about mentoring first-generation and underrepresented students and promoting equity in science.

Malcom Díaz García earned his Mechanical Engineering degree from Universidad de Puerto Rico Mayaguez. His research inspired him to study how mechanics and thermodynamics regulate neuronal metabolism. This led him to do postgraduate neuroscience research in the Colón-Ramos Lab at Yale University. Now a 1st year Biophysics PhD student at Vanderbilt University, his goal is to return to Puerto Rico to mentor and empower youth and communities to address their issues through scientific research.

Alejandra is an incoming Psychology PhD student at Stanford University. She was born and raised in Bogotá, Colombia, and received her B.A. in Psychology from the Universidad Nacional de Colombia. Before starting her PhD, she worked as a lab manager at New York University. Her research interests focus on how brain circuit maturation and reorganization support the emergence of memory and language during infancy. She is also passionate about mentoring other first-generation students in their academic paths.

Maria Luiza received her B.S. in Biomedical Sciences from UNIVAP, Brazil. After 2.5 years at NYU Langone Health, she is now a first-year Ph.D. student at the University of California, Irvine. Her research focuses on how acute inflammatory experiences shape the tissue microenvironment to drive tumor progression and metastasis. As a first-generation student, she is motivated to make a meaningful impact and inspire other students from underrepresented backgrounds to pursue careers in science.

Megan Brown, originally from the Bahamas, is a current graduate student at UNC-Chapel Hill, pursuing her PhD in Chemistry. She is passionate about exploring the underlying chemistry of biological systems. Her goal is to utilize mass spectrometry as a bridge between chemistry and biology to make impactful scientific discoveries.

Nanushka Mia Bonano-Collazo from Cataño, Puerto Rico, earned her B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Microbiology from IUAPR-Metro Campus. She is a first-year PhD student in Marine Estuarine Environmental Sciences at UMCES-IMET. She is interested in the ecology of dinoflagellates and their toxin production related to HABs, especially strains of Karenia brevis in the southeastern US, where these toxins increasingly impact shellfish cultivation and human health.

Natalie is a graduate student in the Gene Environment Interplay Across the Lifespan Lab, pursuing a dual-title degree in Developmental Psychology and Social Data Analytics (SoDA). In 2025, Natalie graduated as a first-generation student with a B.S. in Psychology from St. John Fisher University. Broadly, she is interested in adversity in parent-child relationships, including loneliness, and how that is transmitted through both genes and environment.

Paty is an Ecuadorian biologist trained in Marine Ecology in the Galápagos Islands. Her passion for animal behavior led her to study how humpback whale behavior shapes genetic diversity in the Southeastern Pacific. Seeking deeper mechanisms, at Yale she investigated how C. elegans sensory neurons use distinct vesicle pools to regulate behavior. Now, as a PhD student at UCLA, she wants to study how animals use their sensory systems to transform perception into behavioral decisions.

Roberto received his BS in Physics & Mathematics from Stony Brook University, and is currently pursuing a MS in Physics at Illinois State University. He has a broad range of research interests including: stellar dynamics, plasma physics, and solid state physics. He has previously held a Fulbright scholarship, as well as a guest researcher position at the Center for Computational Astrophysics. He is currently investigating elastic properties of the neutron star crust using numerical simulations.

Sarina Wallace is a first-year Clinical Psychology Ph.D. student at Virginia Commonwealth University. She is studying the intersectional influences of poverty and racism on maternal mental health. Furthermore, she is interested in studying the role of support systems and community resources in strengthening postpartum health outcomes. Ultimately, she aspires to use her research to inform culturally-responsive interventions and public health policy for mothers and their families.

Shirley A. De La Cruz is a first-year Counseling Psychology PhD student at UC Santa Barbara’s Gevirtz Graduate School. She is proudly from South Central, Los Angeles, and a first-generation/low-income college graduate. Shirley received her BA in Psychology with a minor in Central American Studies from UCLA. Her interests include culturally-responsive healing modalities, CBPR, and mixed-methods research to highlight lived experiences and understand the wellness of people of the Global Majority.

Tori Sodeinde is a first-year PhD student in the MIT Department of Biology. She earned her B.S. from Yale University, where she studied telomere proteins and their roles in maintaining genome stability. Tori is broadly interested in molecular mechanisms and looks forward to exploring various topics in molecular biology research at MIT. Outside of the lab, Tori is a volunteer for the MIT Biology Application Assistance Program and has a passion for science communication.

Yeishmary graduated with a B.Sc. in Environmental Sciences from the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras campus. She is currently a Frontiers Master’s student at the University of Michigan, with research interests in wildlife ecology and conservation genetics. For her thesis project, she will study the genetic diversity and population structure of endangered primate populations in South America. Upon graduating, she wishes to pursue a Ph.D. in wildlife ecology and work towards conservation efforts.