Back in 1991, Geanncarlo Lugo-Villarino was working in a shoe store. Growing up poor in Mexico, he had a shaky grasp of English and graduated from high school in San Diego with a 2.7 average. He seemed destined for a less than stellar future.
A co-worker talked to him. He had to go back to school, she said, or he would end up like her: stuck in a dead-end job. Today, Lugo is a rising scientist and is “someone to watch,” as a former mentor puts it.
At 38, he has a Ph.D. from Harvard University in immunology and a lengthy list of peer-reviewed publications and fellowships, awards, scholarships and other honors.
He is now in Toulouse, France, doing postdoctoral research on tuberculosis at Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, the equivalent of the National Institutes of Health in the states. But he also has done research at the Scripps Research Institute, Yale, NIH, Harvard and the University of California at San Diego.
