From Chemistry School to the University of Chicago. The International Journey of an Academic

My career at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) was extraordinary, with a great intellectual, educational, and social environment. The courses offered at UNAM at that time were fantastic: for each subject, you could choose between three or four professors, depending on the type of curriculum you wanted to develop. There was a lot of help from classmates, incredible students at UNAM, all helping each other, and of course, exceptional professors. 

One of the anecdotes I like to remember and share with my colleagues in the United States is how professors and students were already in class at seven in the morning and until eight or nine, then they would go to work, and at five or six in the afternoon they would resume their classes until eight or nine at night. This demonstrates the great dedication of the professors who, in addition to their professional jobs, dedicated part of their time to teaching. That’s something unique, and it was always clear that people working in this way did so with a great ethical sense. I am sure they passed it on to me and all my peers in those classes. 

Among the great experiences I went through at UNAM was the opportunity to get research jobs during undergraduate studies. The experience of working, for example, at the Mexican Petroleum Institute or in the laboratories of some of the professors, was unique. It showed me that there was much more to learn and motivated me to pursue graduate studies abroad. 

The encouragement I received from my professors at UNAM was very important; they were the first to assure me that I had the necessary training to compete abroad, And they were right. I was fearful when I left to study abroad, but once there I realized that I was perfectly well prepared and ready to compete with the best in the world. So having that confidence in myself, the confidence that my teachers gave me, is very important. Another relevant experience was the friendship of the colleagues with whom I attended college; they remain great friends to this day. Irreplaceable friendships that undoubtedly contributed greatly to my education. If I have any regret, it is that there were thousands of classmates with whom I did not have time to develop a closer friendship. I would have loved to get to know them better. Each one of them was a world themselves, extraordinary people. 

As I mentioned earlier, I had the opportunity to work at the Mexican Petroleum Institute, and one of the lessons from this experience was that I wanted to deepen my knowledge, I wanted to learn more, I wanted more educational opportunities, and talking to people at the university, my professors, and colleagues at work, they all encouraged me to go abroad. My parents were also very important in that decision. They didn’t want me to leave home, of course, but they were the first to support me, to help me, and to make sure I could attend a great school abroad. 

Once abroad, the first few months were certainly difficult. New country, living alone, new language, another culture. But over time, I was able to overcome the obstacles and had a fabulous experience at the University of California at Berkeley. And later, I had another great experience at ETH Zurich, where I did postdoctoral work. 

After completing my Ph.D. at Berkeley, I had several job interviews, one of them was with the University of Wisconsin, where I was fortunate enough to be offered a professor position, first as assistant, then as associate, and then full-time. I spent almost 20 years at Wisconsin and after that time, the opportunity arose to move to the University of Chicago, with the proposal to found its engineering school. Eleven years ago, the University of Chicago did not have an engineering school; they wanted to establish it in the field of Molecular Engineering, and I was the first professor they hired. Now we are almost 40 professors and several hundred students. We continue to grow, and frankly, I am very happy to have had this opportunity and to build this school that we now have here in Chicago, of course, with many students from around the world and many Mexicans, so very happy to serve students who have been trained at UNAM and other universities in Mexico. 

Finally, something I’d like to emphasize is the role my family, my parents, and my siblings played in my education; it was fundamental. Both my parents were legendary professors at UNAM, and seeing the dedication with which they did their work, the way they worked with their students, was extraordinarily important to me and an example I would like everyone to have. It was a unique example for me: that’s my story.

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