Castillo-González receives Vice Chancellor’s Award for graduate research
Contact: Claudia Marcela Castillo-González, 979-845-1012, castillo.cm@gmail.com
COLLEGE STATION – Claudia Marcela Castillo-González of College Station has received a Texas A&M AgriLife Vice Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in the graduate student research category.
The honor was presented Jan. 14 during the 2016 Vice Chancellor’s Awards in Excellence Ceremony in College Station.
Castillo-González is a graduate assistant in research for the biochemistry and biophysics department at Texas A&M University.
“Claudia has already demonstrated her exceptional potential in scientific research,” said Dr. Xiuren Zhang, Castillo-González’s advisor and associate professor of biochemistry and biophysics. “She is clearly a rising, shining star in science.”
Castillo-González began her doctoral program at Texas A&M in the fall of 2010 after earning a bachelor’s in microbiology and a master’s in biological sciences, both from the Universidad de Los Andes in Bogota, Colombia.
The focus of her doctoral program pertains to understanding how a virus can invade a plant and cause disease by suppressing the natural defense mechanisms of the plant. Results from her studies were cited in the nomination as having “far-reaching effects and could allow for the development of plants that are more resistant to viruses, and thus the plants will be healthier and produce better.”
She has published results of her research in three professional, peer-reviewed journals, and she has presented her findings at science conferences in the U.S. and Canada.
The Vice Chancellor’s Awards in Excellence were established in 1980 to recognize the commitment and outstanding contributions of Texas A&M AgriLife faculty, students and staff statewide.
