On Becoming a Domestic and Laboratory Goddess

This edition of the Diversity in Science Carnival highlights the achievements of Hispanic scientists. There are a number of distinguished Hispanic scientists, including several that have won the Nobel Prize (click here for more information on Severo Ochoa, Luis Walter Alvarez and Mario Molina, for example). However, I wanted to write about an active scientist because I believe it is important to highlight the work of the current role models. For this reason I decided to write about my colleague from the American Physiological Society, Francisco Andrade.

Dr. Andrade was born in Tijuana, Mexico, and attended the Instituto Tecnologico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey in Monterrey, Mexico. He received his bachelors degree in medical science and developed an interest in mathematics and statistics, physics, and  computer programming. Then Dr. Andrade moved to the United States where he received his doctorate in physiology from the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, Texas in 1994. He completed postdoctoral training at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, the University of Kentucky Medical Center in Lexington, KY, and Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, OH. A biography of Dr. Andrade is available through the APS website and its formal curriculum vita can be found here.

Dr. Andrade is associate professor of physiology at the University of Kentucky. There, he studies the function of specialized muscle groups, including the muscles that control eye and larynx. Dr. Andrade is well funded and has written more than forty scientific articles. However, I wanted to write about Dr. Andrade because he is an exceptional teacher and mentor. Many of the things he has written have guided me in my career. For example, he wrote this article in The Physiologist on the establishment of a new laboratory and recruitment of personnel. He is a member of the Committee on Women in Science of the APS and responded to questions about being a woman or minority in science. It is because Dr. Andrade is a talented scientist invests in the careers of others that I have tremendous respect for him. Indeed, I'm extremely proud to call him my colleague.