Jump to content

Lydia Contreras

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Lydia Contreras
Born
Santo Domingo, Dominican republic
NationalityDominican/US citizen
Alma materCornell University
Princeton University
AwardsElected to American Institute of microbiology, 2023
American Chemical Society (ACS)
Biotechnology Division Young Investigator Award, 2020
Elected to The American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, 2019
Mellichamp Emerging Leader Lecture, 2018
Cornell Chemical Engineering Distinguished Alumni Award, 2018
Biotechnology and Bioengineering Daniel I.C. Wang Award, 2016
Society of Hispanic Professional Engineering (SHPE) Young Investigator Award, 2015
Health and Environmental Institute (HEI) Walter E. Rosenblith New Investigator, 2015
Norman Hackerman Advanced Research Program (NHARP) Early Career Program, 2014
NSF CAREER Award, 2013
Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) Young Investigator, 2013
Warfield Center Faculty Teaching Award, 2013
Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) Young Investigator, 2011
Keystone Symposia Fellow on Molecular and Cellular Biology, 2011
Scientific career
InstitutionsUniversity of Texas at Austin

Lydia Contreras is a full professor at the University of Texas at Austin.[1] She is an American chemical engineer most notable for her work on biomolecular engineering, genetics, and drug discovery.

Education

[edit]

Contreras earned her B.S.E. in Chemical Engineering in 2003 from Princeton University and her Ph.D. in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering in 2008 from Cornell University.[citation needed]

Academic career

[edit]

Contreras is known for her experimental and computational work on understanding molecular features that lead to the interaction of RNAs and proteins. Her work has led to the development of new methods and understanding of, for instance, the capacity of RNA nucleotides to establish intermolecular RNA interactions via high-throughput characterization of RNA interfaces.[2][3]

Following the completion of her PhD, she served as an NIH Postdoctoral Fellow in the Division of Genetics and Bioinformatics, Wadsworth Center at the New York State Department of Health from 2008 to 2010. She then served as a visiting Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Biochemistry at the Max F. Perutz Laboratories in Vienna before she began serving as an assistant professor at the University of Texas at Austin. In 2017, she was promoted to Associate Professor in the department of chemical engineering.[4]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ "Faculty Profile: Contreras, Lydia M. Ph.D."
  2. ^ Mihailovic, Mia K.; Vazquez-Anderson, Jorge; Li, Yan; Fry, Victoria; Vimalathas, Praveen; Herrera, Daniel; Lease, Richard A.; Powell, Warren B.; Contreras, Lydia M. (2018). "High-throughput in vivo mapping of RNA accessible interfaces to identify functional sRNA binding sites". Nature Communications. 9 (1): 4084. Bibcode:2018NatCo...9.4084M. doi:10.1038/s41467-018-06207-z. PMC 6172242. PMID 30287822. S2CID 52921387.
  3. ^ "University of Texas engineering professor making breakthroughs in science". 3 October 2018.
  4. ^ "Lydia Contreras PI".