5,000+

Luis González-Solá as a masters degree and
LSAMP Bridge to the Doctorate Cohort II Fellow
Student in structural engineering at UPR-
Mayagüez he developed an economic system
that prevented severe damage or collapse on
hillside concrete structures during seismic
events. He has lectured at the Interamerican
University of Puerto Rico at Aguadilla. Later he
developed a series of video lectures that have been seen by
more than 200,000 students. Disappointed with the current state
of innovation in the construction industry he is planning to start
in 2012 González-Solá Design & Construction, a company that
will design and build thin shell concrete structures that require
less quantity of materials and are more seismic-resistant than
current structures. You can view his structural and academic
work at www.gonzalezsola.com.
Olga C. Abreu Vega graduated magna cum
laude in 2004 from the University of Puerto
Rico at Mayagüez, with a B.S. in Biology. She
was awarded the Bridge to the Doctorate
Program Fellowship Cohort II during the first
two years (2004-2006) of her Master’s degree
in Marine Biology (UPR-Mayagüez). From
2006 to 2009 she became a General
Chemistry Tutor and Laboratory Instructor teaching, facilitating
and promoting freshmen college students in the development of
basic Chemistry skills. Olga gets a transfer to the Teaching
Preparation Program at the same university, completing the
Biology Teaching Practice on December 2010 and receiving her
Teaching Certificate on August 2011. On January 2012 she will
start her graduate studies at Interamerican University-San
Germán, with a major in Science Education.
Elizabeth Padilla-Crespo is a Ph.D. candidate
at the U. of Tennessee-Knoxville. She has a
double degree in Industrial Biotechnology and
Microbiology from the UPR-Mayaguez. As an
undergraduate she performed research at
Harvard Medical School, the DOE Lawrence
Berkeley National Laboratory, the U. of
Wisconsin-Madison and the Georgia Institute of Technology.
She has been the recipient of various prestigious awards
among these a Science Foundation Graduate Research
Fellowship, the PR NASA Space Grant Consortium Fellowship
Program, the HACU, Bureau of Land Management Scholarship
and was selected as a 2009 NASA International Year of
Astronomy Student Ambassador. She is a NSF-Fellow and
currently working on developing molecular tools for improved
detection of dechlorinating bacteria in the environment.
Miguel A. González-Santiago
earned his B.S. in Chemistry from
the Interamerican University of
Puerto Rico in 2004. In 2004 he
entered the UPR Mayagüez graduate
program in Chemistry where he
obtained and LSAMP Bridge to the
Doctorate Fellowship Cohort II. In
2007, he completed his M.S. in Chemistry and currently he is
enrolled in UPR-Mayagüez Ph.D. in Applied Chemistry
program. While in his graduated studies he had collaborated
with the SONW and participated of the GLOBE programs, which
impact k-12 students and teachers from PR school system in an
effort to improve students’ interest toward STEM programs.
Alexis J. Morales Blanco received a B.S.
(1995) and M.S (1998) in Chemistry from
the University of Puerto Rico Mayagüez
Campus. In May 2010, he obtained a
Ph.D. in Applied Chemistry from the
University of Puerto Rico- Mayagüez
Campus, where the focus of his doctoral
research was the study of supramolecular
host-guest interactions of cyclodextrins and calixarenes with
different organometallics antitumor agents using solid state
techniques and computer simulation. He began his career in the
pharmaceutical industry. Since 2003 he has been at Hewlett-
Packard Inc. working as a Member of the Technical Staff
supporting the analytical operations and the development of new
technologies.
Maribella Domenech graduated from the
UPR-Mayaguez in 2006 with a B.S. in Industrial
Biotechnology, a five-year multi-disciplinary
program with specialization in biology,
chemistry and chemical engineering. She
participated in the PR-LSAMP and SLOAN
programs. In 2010, she received a PhD in
Biomedical Engineering at the University of
Wisconsin in Madison. She was awarded with
several fellowships including the Graduate
Engineering Research Scholar fellowship (GERS) and Puerto
Rico Industrial Development Company Scholarship (PRIDCO). In
2009, she was selected for an oral presentation at the Keystone
Symposium “Extrinsic Control of Tumor Genesis and
Progression” Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Currently,
she works as a postdoctoral researcher as part of the Institute for
Elddie M. Román-Morales, BS, MS and
PH.D.candidate in Chemistry from UPR-Mayaguez.
Acquired scholarships from: AMGEN (undergraduate
research), NSF and SLOAN (graduate research).
Presented poster: Junior Technical Meeting (2003),
National Science Foundation Meeting (2005), Advances in
Chemical Science and Eng. (2006), ACS 233rd National Meeting
& Exposition (2007), 41st IUPAC Congress, 31st Senior
Technical Meeting, and 43st IUPAC Congress (2011). Involved
in outreach programs: Science on Wheels, GLOBE, and STEP-
UP. Publications: 1“Recombinant hemoglobin II from Lucina
pectinata: a large-scale method for hemoprotein expression in E.
Coli.” The Protein J., (2010), 2“Structural determinants for the
formation of sulfhemoproteins complexes.” Biochem. Biophys
Res Comm (2010), 3“Hydrogen Sulfide and Hemeproteins:
Knowledge and Mysteries” Antioxid. Redox (2011).
Yaítza Luna-Cruz, BS and MS degree in
Physics from UPR-Mayaguez. As an undergrad
student she received the support of the AMP in
various research and outreach activities. She
is currently a PhD candidate at Howard
University Program in Atmospheric Sciences in Washington, DC
and a graduate fellow from the NOAA Center for Atmospheric
Sciences. Studying the evolution of cloud microphysics
associated with tropical cyclones using airborne measurements.
As part of her research she participated in important field
campaigns such as the NASA Student Airborne Research
Program (2009) onboard: NASA DC-8 aircraft, NASA Genesis
and Rapid Intensification Processes experiment (2010) in NASA
DC-8 aircraft and the NCAR ICE-T-2011 onboard the NCAR C-
130 aircraft. Was recently selected to be part of the NCAR
Advanced Study Program as a graduate visitor.
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