I am from a small town in Galicia, the northwest of Spain. I’ve always been really curious about how our body works, what happens when it gets sick, and especially how can we make it better. But I didn’t really want to be a doctor, what I wanted was to understand it and create the knowledge that could end up helping patients. That is what led me to complete my PhD in Biomedical Sciences. I did my postdoc at the University of Oklahoma researching the causes and potential treatments for age-related cognitive decline. There, I had incredible women as mentors, Drs. Anna Csizsar and Melissa Medina. They believed in me and helped me grow more than I could have imagined by challenging me out of my comfort zone. They trained me to not only be a good researcher but also be a good educator, and eventually they fully supported me when I made the decision to come to the University of Mississippi to become a pharmacy educator in one of the best Schools of Pharmacy in the nation.
What is your profession? I am an Instructional Assistant Professor of Pharmacology in the Department of BioMolecular Sciences, UM School of Pharmacy.
What motivates you? Getting to interact with students and receiving immediate feedback on your work is a great motivator for me. I know how hard it is to be a student and I do my best to make sure that they have a good and productive experience, so I guess part of it is empathy. I am also very passionate about eradicating language barriers in health care, and this motivated me to create a new course, Spanish for Pharmacists, to try to help future pharmacists to be able to provide more equitable health care. I am also partnering with health organizations on campus and in the community to celebrate bilingual health fairs that bring free medical testing and advice to those who need it but might not have proper access. The next one is this Saturday October 16 in the morning at the Oxford Activity Center!
How do you challenge negativity? I tend to be a more logical than emotional person. I often feel negativity and I kind of embrace it for a while, because it is a real feeling with real causes. But I know that there are always other perspectives that are also real and that need to be explored. I recently got on a very negative spiral due to the US travel restrictions that made me think that this country does not value me and never will. And while that may be a justified feeling, I challenged it by also paying attention to the amazing, supporting people in this university and outside who value me and my work, and who prove that to me every day.
What advice would you give other women who may face similar challenges? Surround yourself with positivity. Not the toxic positivity that tells you that everything is great when it is not, but the positivity that encourages you to see the other side of the coin and that brings a little bit of light to your day to help you get through it. I was fortunate enough to find that in the people that I work with.
What resources have you found helpful for your career, your profession and/or to balance your life? In my profession I take advantage of many University-sponsored programs for professional development. CETL at OleMiss is an incredible resource and I try to attend every one of their events. Training related to teaching in higher education was a complete game-changer for me. You could be the most accomplished scientist in the world, but that is not going to automatically make you a good science educator. And it is becoming increasingly clear that we need to be better at communicating science. Career-wise, finding a variety of great mentors has made all the difference for me. Some cheered me on so much that I believed I could do anything and others were there to listen to me and guide me through the world of academia.
Also, something that weighs heavily on my heart is having my family, lifelong friends, and cultural roots so far away. Having a group of Hispanic friends here to check in with has made me feel closer to home, and it gives a much-needed balance to my life.
