Lydia Contreras, Ph.D.

The University of Texas at Austin has named Lydia Contreras as its new vice provost for faculty diversity, equity and inclusivity, effective immediately. Contreras, who currently holds the Jim and Barbara Miller Endowed Faculty Fellowship in Chemical Engineering, has served for the past two years as the managing director of diversity in the Office of the Executive Vice President and Provost.

She succeeds Edmund T. Gordon, who will serve as the inaugural executive director for the university’s Contextualization and Commemoration Initiative.

Contreras’ primary responsibility will be to lead the advancement of the Strategic Plan for Faculty Diversity, Equity, and Inclusivity in alignment with UT’s new plan for an equitable and inclusive campus, You Belong Here… Continue reading.

It’s well known that poor air quality can lead to health problems. But research from Texas ChE faculty members Lydia Contreras and Lea Hildebrandt Ruiz uncovers new information about how air quality issues can affect important processes in the body and details how people who live in polluted areas could be at greater risk for lung disease and other illnesses.

The research, published this week in Communications Biology, examines how pollution disrupts cells’ ability to regulate themselves. The team found that when cells are exposed to a combination of pollutants typically present in congested urban areas, genetic mechanisms that lead to cholesterol production are disrupted and cells are damaged in ways not captured by traditional markers. That deregulation of cells transforms how they interact with each other, and those interactions are key to keeping cells healthy… Continue reading.

WASHINGTON, D.C.—The American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) has announced the induction of Lydia Contreras, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Texas at Austin, to its College of Fellows.

Election to the AIMBE College of Fellows is among the highest professional distinctions accorded to a medical and biological engineer. The College of Fellows is comprised of the top two percent of medical and biological engineers. College membership honors those who have made outstanding contributions to “engineering and medicine research, practice, or education” and to “the pioneering of new and developing fields of technology, making major advancements in traditional fields of medical and biological engineering, or developing/implementing innovative approaches to bioengineering education.”

Dr. Contreras was nominated, reviewed, and elected by peers and members of the College of Fellows for “outstanding contributions to the innovation/engineering of RNAs to serve as in vivo sensors of cellular states”