Leire Abalde Atristain

MECUSAChair

Leire is a neuroscientist from Donostia-San Sebastian who completed her undergraduate studies in Biotechnology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and a master’s in Biomedical Research at the Pompeu Fabra University, also in Barcelona. Sponsored by a predoctoral fellowship from the La Caixa Foundation, Leire moved to the US in 2013 to obtain her doctorate from the Johns Hopkins University, where she was recognized with a Young Investigator Award for her thesis work. She is currently a postdoctoral researcher with Dr. Marc Freeman at Oregon Health & Science University, where she studies the role of glial cells in the degeneration of neurons in the central nervous system. Leire joined the ECUSA’s e-Visibility program in 2020 because of her passion for science communication, her conviction that without Science there is no future, and her STEMinist ideals. Since 2021 she also leads MECUSA in its mission to empower women scientists, improve their visibility, and advocate for gender equity in science.

Cristina Sastre

Chair EPO (Education & Public Outreach)

She studied biology at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and did her internship at the assisted reproduction unit of the Hospital Universitari Vall d’Hebron. After graduating she moved to Madrid where she took a Master’s degree in molecular biomedicine at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and then began her doctoral studies at the Vascular Pathology Laboratory of the Instituto de Investigaciones Sanitarias of the Fundación Jiménez Díaz with a thesis on the inflammation of atherosclerotic plaque. In February 2016 she moved to Boston to start as a Postdoctoral Fellow in Dr. W. Taylor Kimberly’s neurology lab at Massachusetts General Hospital to investigate mechanisms of inflammation in stroke.

Alvaro Curiel

CDA (Career Development & Advisory) Chair

He has double B.Sc. in Biology and Biochemistry (University of Navarra), and he performed his doctoral thesis at the National Center for Oncological Research on chemoresistance mechanisms and animal models for brain tumors. He is currently a postdoctoral researcher at Columbia University where he participates and focuses on identifying personalized therapies for patients with pancreatic cancer in collaboration with the Presbyterian Hospital of NY. Alvaro is the current Director of Career Development and Advisory commission as well as an active member of the New York chapter and the MECUSA commission.

Fernando J. de Miguel

Chair of Communications

Fernando is a lung cancer biologist. He studied a degree in Biochemistry at the University of Navarra (UNAV) prior to an MSc. in Molecular and Cellular Biology at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM). He returned to Pamplona to obtain his Ph.D. at the Center for Applied Medical Research (CIMA) from the University of Navarra. Fernando is currently working as an Associate Research Scientist at the Yale Cancer Center in New Haven, CT, where he studies epigenetic mechanisms of resistance to immunotherapies and targeted therapies in lung cancer. He enjoys and advocates for science communication and outreach and collaborates in different efforts in ECUSA towards this aim.

Francisco Martín Martínez

Fomer President

Francisco Martin-Martinez is an assistant professor and research group leader in the Department of Chemistry at Swansea University. He is also a research affiliate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and co-instructor at Station1, a start-up in socially-driven innovation. Before, he was Research Scientist at MIT (2014-2020), and postdoctoral associate (2011-2013) at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. He sits at the advisory board of Sweetwater Energy, an integrated biorefinery, and 2050Materials, a start-up on sustainable construction materials. He is also co-founder of HyveGeo, a start-up on biobased materials for precision agriculture. In 2022, he was selected as Google Research Innovator and he is working on developing computational chemistry tools using Google Cloud supercomputing.

Teresa Nieves Chinchilla

Fomer President

Dr. Dr. Teresa Nieves-Chinchilla is a research astrophysics in the Heliophysics Science Division of the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), NASA Project Scientist for the Solar Orbiter Collaboration (ESA/NASA) mission and Adjunct Profesor at the Catholic University of America. She has over 17 years of professional experience in the study electromagnetic fields, space plasmas and energetic particles as they relate to the understanding of the properties of large-scale structures of the solar wind. Dr. Dr. Nieves Chinchilla has authored and coauthored 80+ publications in peer-reviewed professional journals and she has served as referee and guest editor in such journals as well. Dr. Nieves-Chinchilla obtained her Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics from the University of Alcalá de Henares in Madrid, Spain, in 2004.

Alicia Pérez-Porro

Fomer President

Marine biologist connecting the environment, gender equality and environmental diplomacy for a more fair and sustainable future for all. She is the scientific coordinator of CREAF, a Spanish ecology research center focused on global change and biodiversity. Dr. in Biodiversity from the University of Barcelona, she conducted her doctoral research as a visiting researcher for five years at Harvard University and complemented her scientific experience with a master’s degree in international relations and diplomacy at the Fletcher School of Tufts University. She is former president of ECUSA and of the Network of Spanish Researchers Abroad (RAICEX). She received the Spanish Red Cross Gold Medal for her advocacy efforts for gender equality with a key component of climate action and co-founded the Spanish non-profit organization ‘Ellas Lideran’ to continue her advocacy work.

Ignacio Ugarte Urra

Founding President

Ignacio Ugarte Urra is an astrophysicist in the Department of Space Sciences at a federal laboratory in Washington, DC. His specialty is solar physics and the study of the processes responsible for heating the outer atmosphere of the Sun, known as the corona, and the eruptions that give rise to space weather. His responsibilities include the scientific exploitation of data from a solar spectrograph currently in orbit and a suborbital rocket in the development phase. He currently serves as the Project Scientist and Deputy PI of a NASA spectrograph under development for an international mission led by JAXA, the Japanese space agency. In 2014, he co-founded the Spanish Scientists Association in the United States (ECUSA) with a group of Spanish scientists in the Washington DC area and served as its first president. Ignacio Ugarte holds a degree in Astrophysics from the University of La Laguna in Tenerife and a Ph.D. in Solar Physics from Queen’s University in Belfast, United Kingdom.

Cristina Vázquez Mateo

Fomer President

Cristina holds a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the Autonoma University of Madrid. Her specialty is autoimmune diseases such as lupus. After completing a postdoctoral fellowship at Boston University, she began her career in the pharmaceutical industry at EMD Serono, where she currently works as the Director of Clinical Research in the Boston area. She has been involved with ECUSA since its early days, serving as the president of the Boston chapter and later at the national level. Among her passions are helping other women advance in their careers, cooking Spanish food for her family, practicing yoga, and connecting with nature.

Ignacio Ugarte Urra

Founding President

Teresa Nieves Chinchilla

Fomer President

Cristina Vázquez Mateo

Fomer President

Francisco Martín Martínez

Fomer President

Alicia Pérez-Porro

Fomer President

Stela Álvarez Fernández

Former Vicepresident