Since Port Sagunto to Boston (USA), passing through the Vera de la Polytechnic University of Valencia (UPV) y Cambridge (UK). This could be, in short, the path of Lucia Castelló, a 23-year-old girl, graduated in Biomedical Engineering by the UPV that after completing a master’s degree at the Uuniversity of cambridgehas now started a doctoral program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the Harvard University.
The Caxton College of Puçol, where the young woman did her pre-university studies, she is pleased that her student is doing “one of the most prized interdisciplinary doctoral programs internationally”, which puts her in the “global academic ecosystem summit in which more Nobel Prizes per square meter they teach classes”.
Lessons at MIT and Harvard
Lucía Castelló attends classes that are taught at both MIT and Harvard and assures Levante-EMV that Boston has impressed him “from the get-go” in which he arrived “especially seeing MIT in the distance, on the other side of the river, from the bus”. “Here everything is big, and research is no exception,” he says. Despite it being his first time in the United States, he assures that he already feels “like at home” and that the adaptation process is taken “as continuous learning.”
He explains that, when he was studying in Valencia, he did not imagine “ending up doing a doctorate”, but as he progressed in the subject, he became interested in research. So much so that even in Spain, he has already positioned himself in the first place in the national ranking of Biomedical Engineeringof the Spanish Society of Academic Excellence.
Now, he says feel “a great responsibility in representing the UPV and return to society in the form of knowledge the opportunity that these universities have given me together with the scholarships”. In fact, he is in the doctoral program at MIT and Harvard, with a place fully financed by these institutions, as well as a “la Caixa” scholarship for talented young people, after passing very high academic requirements and a exhaustive admission process with several phases.
Improving health with technology
Passionate about nanotechnology applied to health sciences -has also been formed in the University Institute of Nanophotonic Technology of the UPV-, the objective of Lucía Castelló is “improve human health through technological advances”harnessing “the combined power of engineering and medicine.”
From his stay in the United States, he intends “to make the most of training by world-leading scientists”, in addition to “enjoying the unique ecosystem that Boston offers in the field of biomedical engineering.”
As this newspaper has published on numerous occasionsthe female presence is reduced in the STEM areas (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). On this, the young woman affirms that it has not weighed on her academic career – “I have my ideas quite clear” – but she believes that it is a trend that is changing: “we will see an increase in the percentage of women from generation to generation generation”.
The young woman is grateful that her professors at Caxton College encouraged her to bet on Engineering and Medicine, without forgetting Mathematics, which she has always been passionate about, and sends a message to girls and adolescents: “work for what you want and don’t be afraid to enter areas where many female references are still not seen, since they can become so and this should be an added motivation to promote change”.