I was born in Bronx, NY and raised in Bayamon, Puerto Rico.  I lived in a federal project and I come from a single mother family that lived out of barely $15,000 a year, which it was the poverty level cut off then.  Needless to say I have come a long way.  I am a driven individual, both positive and negative experiences have served as fuel to reach my goals.  I obtained a B.S. in Molecular and Cellular Biology with a minor in Math at the Universidad Metropolitana, part of the Ana G. Méndez System in San Juan, PR.  Every summer I participated of summer internships that provided me experiences in the fields of Genetics, Microbiology and Computer Science.  My last internship, at San Jose State University in CA, was particularly important because that is when I became interested in microbiology.  I was using fluorescence microscopy approaches to identify the SBG3 bacteria, an oral bacteria part of the TM7 division.  Coincidentally enough, now I work in the lab of Dr. Donald R. Demuth, in characterizing the iron transport mechanism of an oral bacteria called Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans and the role that neutrophils play in this mechanism.