Creating a chemistry pathway from Puerto Rico

Chemical & Engineering News profiles Luis A. Colón, who has recruited at least 70 students over from his alma mater, University of Puerto Rico in Cayey, to conduct summer research at UB. Former students and colleagues have expanded that effort, creating a supportive chemistry community. “We hear a lot of ‘diversity and inclusion,’ ‘diversity and inclusion,’ but that’s sometimes the equivalent of ‘thoughts and prayers,’ ” says Nahyr A. López Dauphin, a fifth-year graduate student in Colón’s lab who originally came as a UPR-Cayey undergraduate. “But he’s actually walking the walk.” “All I felt coming here was I was with a family,” says UB alum Luis R. De Jesús Báez, an assistant professor of chemistry at UB. “I want to keep propagating that.”