I was born in Bogota, Colombia but raised in Miami, Florida. I gave up the sun when I moved to Boston for graduate school. Believe it or not, if I had the chance to do it all over again I wouldn't do things differently. That isn't to say I would prefer Boston to be warmer!

I first joined the lab in 1995 as a graduate student and obtained my PhD in Immunology from Harvard University in 1999. My thesis work focused on the role of T cell cross-reactivity in the selection and expansion of myelin-reactive T cells in the EAE model of CNS autoimmunity. I left the lab to pursue postdoctoral training at UC Berkeley in the field of T cell development. After spending four years there I decided that I really was an East Coast girl at heart and rejoined the lab in 2004.