SACNAS has named Dr. Jorge Torres as June Mentor of the Month in recognition of his lifelong commitment to mentoring. In 2019, he received the organization’s Outstanding College/University Mentor Award as well as the Hispanic Student Mentor Award for his service to students at all levels as a professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at University of California, Los Angeles.
In addition to the SACNAS awards, Torres was named the 2019 recipient of the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) Prize for Excellence in Inclusivity. He was recognized at the ASCB|EMBO Meeting in Washington, DC, on December 7 and contributed an essay to the Society’s basic science journal, Molecular Biology of the Cell. Click here to watch the video.
“I was born in McAllen, Texas, to Mexican immigrants,” Torres wrote in the Society’s science journal, Molecular Biology of the Cell. “The family, composed of my parents and two siblings, had been in the United States for only a few years, and it was rough. My father earned a living taking care of a farm in exchange for living in a farm building, and he unloaded freight trucks in exchange for food and money,” Torres said. “I was introduced to earning my keep early in life. From about the age of 8 to 13, I worked alongside my family as a migrant farm worker and traveled the United States living in the back of a truck, working in the fields harvesting vegetables (onions, tomatoes, squash, etc.) and fruits (strawberries, grapes, wine grapes, apricots, oranges, etc.). So if you were enjoying these delicious products in the 1980s, they may have been picked by my hands!”
Torres went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in molecular, cellular, and developmental biology from the University of California at Santa Barbara. He received a Ph.D. in Chemistry and Molecular Biology from Princeton University, and pursued postdoctoral work at Genentech Inc. and Stanford University School of Medicine.
In the ASCB essay, Torres also said the road to a science career is often a difficult one with ups and downs. Below are 8 tips he shared to better prepare for careers in science:
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