Our Mission
LatinXinBME was founded with the mission to promote and support the professional and personal development of all LatinX in biomedical engineering (BME), increase the representation of LatinX at all levels in our profession, and build a community of peers connected through scholarship and friendship.
Our Founders
Dr. Brian Aguado
Dr. Brian Aguado (Twitter: @BrianAguado) is currently an Assistant Professor of Bioengineering at UC San Diego, where his laboratory research is focused on studying sex differences in cardiovascular disease using biomaterial technologies. Dr. Aguado completed his BS degree in Biomechanical Engineering from Stanford University and his MS and PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Northwestern University. He also obtained his certificate in Management for Scientists and Engineers from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern. He completed his postdoctoral fellowship in Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder. Dr. Aguado has received numerous awards to support his research, including the NIH K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Award, the American Heart Association Career Development Award, and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Science Diversity Leadership Award. Dr. Aguado is also a dedicated science communicator outside of the lab and seeks to engage historically excluded and marginalized populations in the sciences. Dr. Aguado co-founded LatinXinBME (Twitter: @LatinXinBME), a new social media initiative dedicated to building a diverse and inclusive community of Latinx biomedical engineers and scientists to support each other personally and professionally through their careers. For his efforts, he was named one of the 100 Most Inspiring Latinx Scientists in America by Cell Press and received the Biomaterials Diversity Award for Young Investigator from the Biomaterials journal and the GEMINI Faculty Mentor Award from the Institute for Engineering in Medicine.
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Dr. Ana Maria Porras
Dr. Ana Maria Porras is an Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Florida, where she leads the Tissue-Microbe Interactions lab. Her group engineers models of disease to study human-microbe interactions mediated by the extracellular matrix. The TMI lab applies these models in the contexts of the gut microbiome, neglected tropical diseases, and cardiovascular health. Her lab is also interested in understanding and broadening global participation in microbiome and biomaterials science. Additionally, she is a science artist and an expert on inclusive bilingual science communication. Dr. Porras is the co-founder and Senior Advisor of the Latinx in Biomedical Engineering community. She is the recipient of the NSF Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award, the NIH Maximizing Investigators Research Award (MIRA), the AAAS Early Career Award for Public Engagement with Science, and the Society for Biomaterials Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Award. Prior to arriving in Florida, Dr. Porras was a Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow at Cornell University. She holds a B.S. in biomedical engineering from the University of Texas at Austin, and a Masters and Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she was an American Heart Association Predoctoral Fellow. When she isn’t doing all that, she loves to read, dance, travel, do puzzles, and, above all, eat ice cream.
Advisory Board
Dr. Tannia Rodriguez, M.D.
Advisor
Santiago Correa, Ph.D.
Advisor
Jorge Jimenez, Ph.D.
Advisor