El Zoominario (v1.0 English edition)
El Zoominario v1.0 (English edition) was a seminar series that ran from October 2020 to May 2025 with scientific talks in English for general audiences given by members of the Latinx community. This initial series has been paused for now as we are organizing El Zoominario v2.0 Spanish edition! See the left menu for more information.
Thank you to all the speakers and attendees to this initial seminar! We hope to continue to engage the community with the new version of the seminar, and we will post here if/when we resume talks in English!
Talks
Below is the full list of El Zoominario (v1.0) speakers. The talks are also separated by topic in the left menu.
| Date | Heritage | Speaker | Title | YouTube | TikTok | TikTok intro |
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| 2 Oct 2020 |  |
Daniel Pimentel-Alarcon | Machine-learning, inside the black-box |  |
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| 6 Nov 2020 | |
Jose Alonso Solis-Lemus | Supporting 2 patients with 1 ventilator | |
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| 4 Dec 2020 | |
Rosana Zenil-Ferguson | Impact of polyploidy and biome on fern diversification | |
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| 8 Jan 2021 | |
Claudia Solis-Lemus | Learning the Tree of Life | |
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| 5 Feb 2021 |  |
Helena Jaramillo-Mesa | Unraveling protein production mechanisms in plant viruses | |
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| 5 Mar 2021 |  |
Maria Gracia Garcia | Immune cell interactions with imaging flow cytometry | |
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| 2 Apr 2021 | |
Quimi Vidaurre | Fungi and fungus-farming insects: friends and enemies | |
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| 7 May 2021 |  |
Fabricia Nascimento | Simulation framework for HIV epidemics | |
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| 4 Jun 2021 | |
Vianey Leos Barajas | Latent structures in ecological and environmental data | |
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| 2 Jul 2021 | |
Ariadna Gonzalez-Solis | Plant membrane lipids, a tale of life and death | |
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| 6 Aug 2021 | |
Victor Zavala | Sustainability Challenges in the Dairy Industry | |
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| 3 Sep 2021 |  |
Stephanie Colon-Santos | Looking for life: A quest into the Origins of life and Astrobiology | |
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| 5 Nov 2021 | |
Fernando Campos | Hasta la vista, baby! Terminating Cardiac Arrhythmias with Computer Simulations | |
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| 7 Jan 2022 |  |
Ana Salgado | Ecological implications of host plant quality for herbivorous insects | |
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| 4 Feb 2022 | |
Miguel Reyes | Does stress help us adapt and survive? | |
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| 1 Apr 2022 | |
Juliana Gonzalez Tobon | What makes potatoes sick? | |
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| 6 May 2022 | |
Adriana Romero-Olivares | Fungal responses to climate change and consequences to our ecosystems | |
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| 3 Jun 2022 | |
Rene Flores Garcia | Emulating a Pulsar in BRB | |
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| 1 Jul 2022 | |
Nayomi Plaza Rodriguez | Elucidating the nanoscale interactions between wood and water | |
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| 5 Aug 2022 | |
Diana Tabima Martinez | Engineering a small diameter vascular graft | |
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| 2 Sep 2022 | |
Laura Muñoz Baena | Less Is More: How Viruses Evolve Compact Genomes | |
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| 7 Oct 2022 | |
Natalia Rosario-Melendez | Bacterial languages: Communication in a multispecies microbial community | |
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| 4 Nov 2022 |  |
Ambar Carvallo Lopez | Organic tomato breeding, improving flavor, yields, and disease resistance | |
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| 2 Dec 2022 | |
Jesus Arroyo Relion | Finding structure in brain networks | |
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| 3 Feb 2023 | |
Brenda Betancourt | Introduction to record linkage and its applications | |
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| 3 Mar 2023 |  |
Federico Rey | Gut microbes and cardiometabolic health | |
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| 7 Apr 2023 | |
Pablo Moreno-Yaeger | How do volcanoes respond to glaciation? | |
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| 5 May 2023 | |
Daniel Ojeda-Juarez | Understanding neurodegenerative diseases: From Alzheimer’s to Mad Cow Disease | |
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| 1 Sep 2023 | |
Michel Geovanni Santiago-Martinez | Can we find methane-producing microorganisms everywhere? | |
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| 6 Oct 2023 | |
Nahui Medina Chavez | Archaea: Earth’s Ancient Microbial Architects | |
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| 3 Nov 2023 | |
Lluvia Flores-Renteria | Plants withour borders: Genetic connectivity in ecologically and culturally important plants | |
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| 2 Feb 2024 | |
Hector Baños | Mathematics and DNA | |
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| 5 Apr 2024 | |
Juan Caicedo | Recognizing cellular activity with microscopy imaging | |
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| 3 May 2024 | |
Rene Welch | What can we learn from farm kids’ immune system when studying house dust microbiome? | |
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| 6 Sep 2024 | |
Alejandra Quintos | Modeling Random Times with Phases | |
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| 4 Oct 2024 | Gustavo Ballen | [video to be posted soon] | ||||
| 1 Nov 2024 | |
Ulises Rosas | Reducing the size of input data for phylogenetic network inference | |
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| 6 Dec 2024 | |
Johny Uelmen | How Does Planetary and Wildlife Health Affect Human Health? | |
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| 7 Feb 2025 | |
Tanya Pamela Garcia | Establishing the Parallels and Differences Between Right-Censored Covariates and Missing Covariates: Lessons from Huntington Disease | |
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| 2 May 2025 | Horacio Lopez-Nicora | [video to be posted soon] |
FAQ
What is El Zoominario? In its initial version, El Zoominario was a seminar series of scientific short talks (in English) to share the Latinx experience in STEM. The goal was to increase visibility of diversity in STEM and inspire the next generation of scientists. The talks were open to all and accessible to the general audience. This seminar is no longer running as we moved on to El Zoominario v2.0 Spanish edition (see left menu for more details).
What is the format of the talks? The talks were 15-20 minutes long of a scientific topic explained in accessible terms to a broad audience. At the end of the talk, the speaker shares interesting facts about Latinx culture and experience.
How can I watch? Anybody can watch the recorded talks in the youtube channel.
I am at UW-Madison, can I watch the talks live? We are no longer organizing talks for this seminar, but you can join the UW google group “el-zoominario” to be added to the mailing list in order to receive news.
Why are the youtube comments disabled? Currently, we do not have the time to guarantee that all comments will be polite, respectful and family-friendly. Since we want to make these talks accessible to any audience, we prefer to block comments for now.
I want to give a talk or nominate someone to give a talk? We are no longer organizing talks for this version of the seminar, but if you want to participate in the new version of El Zoominario (Spanish edition), please check out the menu on the left.