When Nadia Herrera graduated from Coronado High School in El Paso in 2008, she had enough credits to enter the University of Texas El Paso as a sophomore. Nadia enrolled with a plan to become a lawyer, but a suggestion from her counselor put her on a different path.
It is a path that highlights what students can achieve in the care of faculty and staff dedicated to facilitating student success.
Her UTEP adviser noted Herrera’s love of science and suggested she study microbiology to pursue a pre-medical route.
The first-generation college student did just that while keeping her part-time sales job to pay for school before a different counselor suggested she become a volunteer research lab assistant.
A biochemistry professor, impressed by Herrera’s initiative, accepted her into his lab, which allowed her to apply for and earn fellowships that paid for her tuition.
She added a second-degree plan in biochemistry and was accepted to an internship at California Institute of Technology, where she furthered her love of research.
In 2011, she graduated with honors from UTEP in 2011 and went back to Caltech, where she earned her Ph.D. in 2017 in biochemistry and molecular biophysics.
Today she is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine, where she studies microbial pathogenesis. Her goal is to pursue a career in academia.
Currently, 85 percent of UTEP’s more than 25,000 students are from the El Paso region, 80 percent are Hispanic, and 50 percent of undergraduate students are from the lowest income quartile. UTEP is one of the nation’s top producers of Hispanic graduates. UTEP also is the country’s fourth-ranked institution of origin (college or university where students earn their bachelor’s degree) for Hispanic doctoral graduates.
Click here to read more about how UTEP nurtures aspirational peers like Nadia Herrera in the pursuit of research that has benefited UTEP students, the University, the Paso del Norte region and beyond; and how UTEP’s El Paso Collaborative for Academic Excellence is helping close the education gap and building a college-going culture.
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