Born in Riohacha, Colombia, I did my bachelors and masters at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia working with Dr. Camilo Lopez in the cassava-Xanthomonas phaseoli pv manihotis interaction. Then I did my PhD at the Insitut de recherche pour le Development (IRD) in Montpellier, France working with Dr. Boris Szurek, studying transcription activator-like (TAL) effectors from Xanthomonas oryzae.

I then did a postdoc at the Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris, with Dr. Lionel Navarro, studying microRNAs in plant-bacteria interactions. I’m currently doing a postdoc at Colorado State University with Prof. Jan Leach studying again Xanthomonas oryzae. So far, my research has been focused on evolution of pathogen populations and cross-kingdom gene regulation, either via small RNAs or TAL effectors. You can follow me on Google Scholar.