My inspirations are clear: Mom, Dad, and Disney! Mom was a schoolteacher; Dad was a family doctor for our small, border-town community. And Disney World is my happy place. I’ve managed to adopt my mom’s passion for teaching, my dad’s dedication toward patient care, and the “can-do” Disney spirit that drives my passion for research as an academic professor.
It’s pretty obvious how each of those has had such a profound influence on me. I am fortunate to have the opportunity to both teach and improve patient care, while using a creative twist to develop innovative biomedical-imaging approaches. As one of my favorite Disney characters, the Dreamfinder, once said, “One little spark of inspiration is at the heart of all creation.”
As an assistant professor at the University of Southern California, it’s my responsibility to advance the field of biomedical imaging by conducting innovative research, while also creating opportunities for my graduate and postdoctoral trainees to design and troubleshoot their own research projects. Our lab focuses on developing new nano-based optical imaging strategies that have the potential to offer physicians rich molecular information about their patients — information that may be used to personalize individual therapeutic regimens. I am also responsible for teaching classes that introduce our undergraduate students to various biomedical-imaging techniques that are being used to help improve patient care at the clinical and preclinical level.
My greatest accomplishment is sharing my love for molecular imaging and nanotechnology with my students. Watching them learn and grow over the course of their time in the lab is the most rewarding experience a professor could have. My students are my pride and joy, and it is exciting to think that their brief time in our lab could help inspire their own career paths, leaving a lasting impact on their lives.
As a professor, you cannot teach self-confidence. And as a student, you cannot learn it from textbooks. Self-confidence is something that is earned through experiences. So, my advice is to go out and flood yourself with experiences — and don’t be afraid to let yourself fail.
As a wise Golden Girl, Dorothy Zbornak, once said: “The bottom line is, if you take a chance in life, sometimes good things happen; sometimes bad things happen. But, honey, if you don’t take a chance, nothing happens.”
Cristina Zavaleta
Assistant Professor, Biomedical Engineering, University of Southern California
Born in United States / Resides in United States
Educational Background: BS in Nuclear Medicine, University of Incarnate Word, San Antonio, Texas; PhD in Medical Physics, University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio, Texas; Post-doctoral training in Molecular Imaging, Stanford University, Stanford, California, United States
