My name is Cristobal Rivera. I am from Santiago, Chile and before coming here, I studied dentistry in Universidad Mayor, Santiago, Chile. I'm studying a PhD in Biomedical Science in the Cell Biology program. about the program I love. The diversity is not only the enormous variety of professors that you'd have in different disciplines. I also like the students that are in our cohort, very smart people, everyone can help each other in our voice.
I like the professors in NYU. They love to mentor students -- also sharing their knowledge, sharing the lab skills -- we are lucky to have very prestigious professors. The research I'm doing, it's important for me, because I am trying to understand the disease, that as high rates of deaths in the United States. Our laboratory try to study how aneurysms are formed to find specific markers that produce this disease, so we can actually target them in future pharmaceutical treatments.
Something unique about my laboratory is definitely the fact that we're part of the Division of Vascular and Endovascular Surgery. We collaborate with surgeons every day. They really want to know what we find we can get samples from human patients and do analysis here in the lab.
What I do in my free time, I play soccer four or five times per week. I'm -- it's my favorite things to do outside also is very healthy for my mind. I do grilling barbecues, we love to also have some drinks outside. We like to play board games. I live on campus, it's great. It's very convenient people enjoys to be close to their friends, to be close to their co-workers, you can actually have your own community in a couple of blocks.
In general, my life here has been great. It has been one of the happiest years of my life. In my country, I wouldn't be able to open my eyes, open my borders, like what I do here in New York. I don't think there's any other better place for international person to be. Everyone here that you can find is from different parts of the world -- doctors, postdocs, even PhD students -- they're very multicultural, very diverse, and I feel welcomed.
