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Dr. Angel A. Martí is an Assistant Professor of
Chemistry and Bioengineering at Rice University
in Houston. He obtained his B.S. and Ph.D.
degree in Chemistry from the University of
Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus (UPR-RP).
From 1996 to 1999 he was awarded the Alliance
for Minority Participation Excellence Award.
During his graduate studies Dr. Angel Martí
studied the photophysical properties of metal complexes, held
the NSF GK-12 Education and published 5 manuscripts. In
2004 he was accepted to Columbia University as a postdoctoral
research scientist under the mentorship of Dr. Nicolas Turro, the
worlds most renowned Photochemist. Currently he is interested
in developing multifunctional composite molecules with
applications in medical treatments.
Ida G. Pantoja-Feliciano completed her B.S
degree in Biology in 2007 at the University of
Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras Campus (UPR-RP).
As an undergraduate, she participated in the
PR-LSAMP in 2005-06. In 2007, she became a
PhD graduate student in Biology at UPR-RP,
focused in the area of Microbiology. During her first two years
of graduate studies, she was a PR-LSAMP Bridge to the
Doctorate Fellow Cohort V. Currently she is member of the
American Society for Microbiology (ASM). She was selected to
participate in PR-AGEP and also served as teaching assistant
for the Microbiology Course in the UPR-RP. She is pursuing
her doctorate degree seeking to understand the dynamics of
transmission of the bacterial microbiota and antibiotic
resistance genes. In 2009 she was an intern in the Institute of
Veterinary Bacteriology, Berne, Switzerland.
José I. López is a Ph.D. Chemical
Physics graduate student at the University
of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras Campus
(UPR-RP). While at UPR-RP, José is
mentored by Dr. Gerardo Morell, working
on renewable energy research projects
involving anodic materials for Lithium ion
rechargeable batteries. As a graduate
student he received the Puerto Rico Louis
Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation
(PR-LSAMP) Graduate Bridge to the Doctorate Fellowship
Cohort VIII and his research work has been presented in
national scientific meetings sponsored by the Materials
Research Society (MRS). José offers science workshops to
high school teachers in order to improve their knowledge on
basic concepts and how they can motivate and nurture Hispanic
students to pursue careers in STEM fields.
Barbara Casañas Montes obtained her B.S.
degree from University of Puerto Rico, Río
Piedras Campus (UPR-RP) in 2006. Barbara
participated as an undergraduate PR-LSAMP
scholar. She received her M.S. degree in
Chemistry from UPR-RP in May 2011. Her
field of research are in the chemical and
electrochemical characterization of metallocene derivatives
intercalated in zirconium phosphate for potential use in
biosensors and drug delivery applications. She is the recipient
of the LSAMP Bridge to the Doctorate Fellowship Cohort IV, the
AAAS Caribbean Robert I. Larus Award in 2008 and the NSF-
GK-12 Fellowship in 2010. Barbara is currently pursuing her
Ph.D. studies in Inorganic Chemistry at UPR-RP and is in her
second year of the NSF GK-12 Fellowship.
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Dr. Daniel Caballero-Rivera is a former
LSAMP Bridge to the Doctorate Fellow Cohort
I. He completed his Ph.D. degree on
November 201 at University of Puerto Rico
Río Piedras Campus (UPR-RP). His doctoral
research was in the areas of structural biology
and ion channel biophysics. He has submitted
two manuscripts describing his findings and
are currently under review at peer-review
journals. Dr. Caballero-Rivera has been working as a postdoctoral
research associate at UPR-RP since February 2011. He
has collaborated on the development of novel mutations in the
intracellular domain of the neuronal subunits found in the brain of
chronic smokers. This breakthrough has led him to submit a
patent for the development of transgenic mice lines that are
insensitive to nicotine.
Edward Aviles obtained a B.S. degree in
Chemistry in 2006 from the University of Puerto
Rico, Río Piedras Campus (UPR-RP). Currently
he is pursuing a Ph. D. in Bioorganic Chemistry
and expected to graduate in May 2012. He
began his graduate studies sponsored by the
PR-LSAMP Bridge to the Doctorate Cohort IV
and subsequently has been awarded Research Initiative for
Scientific Enhancement (RISE) and the National Science
Foundation GK-12 fellowships. His research focuses on the study
Secondary Metabolites with Anti-Infective Properties from Marine
Invertebrates. He has published several peer-review articles and
presents them at local and national conferences such the 43rd
IUPAC World Chemistry Congress.
Yamixa Delgado Reyes completed her
BS in Industrial Chemistry in 2007 from
the University of Puerto Rico Humacao
Campus (UPR-H), where she was a PR-
LSAMP scholar. In 2008 she was
accepted as a graduate student at the
UPR Rio Piedras Campus (UPR-RP) to
pursue a Ph.D. in Biochemistry and
Biotechnology. She received a PR-
LSAMP Bridge to the Doctorate
Fellowship Cohort VI and has been
awarded the A. P. Sloan Fellowship. The
focus of her doctoral research is the
effect of chemical glycosylation on the development of protein
formulations with biomedical and pharmaceutical applications.
Daniel E. Soltero completed his BS degree in
Electrical Engineering, in the University of Puerto
Rico, Mayagüez Campus (UPR-M), where he
worked as a lab assistant and did research in control
systems and robotics. During undergraduate studies,
he attended the MIT Summer Research Program
twice, where he also worked in robotics projects. He
just finished his first year as a M.S./Ph.D. student at MIT's Electrical
Engineering and Computer Science Department. He works at the
Distributed Robotics Laboratory, in MIT's Computer Science
and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL), where he is doing research
in optimization and adaptive control to generate paths for robotic
persistent tasks. Daniel is a recipient of the NSF Graduate
Research Fellowship, and MIT's Lemelson Presidential Fellowship.