GABRIEL SÁNCHEZ VELÁZQUEZ

Gabriel Sánchez Velázquez is a Ph.D student in Chemical Engineering at MIT. He recently joined the Michale S. Strano research group where he plans to research in the emergent field of plant nanobionics. Here, his goal is to better understand the interactions between plant organelles and non-biological nanostructures like single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNT) for diverse applications. Gabriel is also a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow; an award he obtained in part by his proposal of a novel functionalized gold-nanoparticle & liquid crystal sensing platform. He received a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from The University of Puerto Rico – Mayagüez (UPRM). During his time as an undergraduate, he managed to gather industry experience at both ExxonMobil and Eastman Chemical. Gabriel is passionate about mentoring and outreach, a love that he developed during his time as Chemical Lead and Team Captain of the Coki Racing Team, an interdisciplinary group that participates at the AIChE Chem-E Car Competition. He hopes to continue mentoring first-generation and underrepresented students in addition to fostering the next wave of Puerto Rican researchers by building and maintaining strong ties with the academic community back in Puerto Rico.