Gabriel Martinez-Santibañez: User-Centered Design Research Fellow, Harvard Medical School

News Date: 

Thursday, January 1, 2015

Content: 

This month's Spotlight features Gabriel, a former Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology major and Art History minor who now designs cutting-edge technologies to improve patient care.

Gabriel, on the experience of being a first generation student:

"It took me many years to realize this, but [my parents'] lack of direction in my education wasn’t because they didn’t care, it was because they didn’t understand. Neither of them had the luxury of an education beyond elementary school. My parents had never heard of a GPA, the SATs, or the GREs. How were they supposed to hold me to a certain standard if they themselves had no idea what the standards were? What they did encourage, though, was independence and emotional intelligence. In a way, them being hands off allowed me the time to evaluate my own skills and hold myself to my own standards."

View the full article (PDF)

To go beyond the interview, hear Gabriel speak with other alumni on the 2016 Alumni Panel: Full Alumni Panel Video

Gabriel welcomes UCSB students to contact him via LinkedIn or through Twitter with questions about the field and for mentorship on how to use your time at UCSB to become competitive in the research world. Requests to look over student resumes or inquiries about open positions will not be responded to.

Gabriel Martinez-Santibañez
@gabmsantibanez

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Editor: Brandilyn Gilbert, Academic Advisor