I studied in the University of Malaga, and majored in Biology. During those years, I hiked a lot – pretty much every weekend and I realized that plants are one of the most interesting organisms to study: they make oxygen for our planet, they are able to evolve and adapt with their roots attached – how cool is that? Their diversity is amazing, and they manage to reproduce using insects, wind, and humans.

I did my Ph.D. in Plant Pathology studying the genetic diversity of viruses affecting major crops on the Southeastern region of Spain. I became really good at using white flies as vectors for the viruses.

Fast forward a few years, I moved to Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory as a postdoctoral fellow. This time I chose to work on basic research using model organisms. Arabidopsis thaliana and maize helped me to characterize mutants affecting leaf and embryonic development.

Where does my education fit into the world of teaching? My father was a middle school teacher, and ever since I can remember teaching has been a very big part of my life. While I was in high school and college, during the summer sessions I learned a lot by helping my father tutor his students.  When I moved to the United States, I taught genetics and biology at a number of colleges and universities in New York City and Long Island.

Now in 2015, I am very proud to be a part of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory DNA Learning Center making science accessible to the general public. On a personal note this is also the year my son Rohan was born. More celebrations!

我在马拉加大学学习，主修生物学。在那些年里，我经常徒步旅行——几乎在每个周末，与此同时，我意识到植物是最有趣的生物体之一：它们为我们的星球制造氧气，它们能够进化和适应它们的根-真的超酷！它们的多样性是惊人的，它们利用昆虫、风和人类进行繁殖。

我获得了植物病理学博士学位，研究影响西班牙东南部主要农作物的病毒的遗传多样性。我变得很擅长用白色果蝇作为病毒的载体。

几年后，我搬到冷泉港实验室做博士后。这次我选择了利用模式生物从事基础研究。拟南芥和玉米帮助我描述了影响叶片和胚胎发育的突变体。

我所接受的教育是如何融入教学的呢？我的父亲是一名中学教师，从我记事起，教学就成了我生活中非常重要的一部分。在我上高中和大学的时候，在暑假期间，我通过帮助父亲辅导他的学生学到了很多。当我搬到美国后，我在纽约市和长岛的一些学院和大学教授遗传学和生物学。

在2015年，我非常自豪地成为冷泉港实验室DNA学习中心的一员，使科学向公众开放。就我个人而言，这也是我儿子Rohan出生的一年。太多值得庆祝的事情！