Yvonne Garcia:
You've built a path for others to follow because you've introduced who you are to Oxford and to Saudi Arabia coming from other areas that they may not have ever thought, "Oh, these people belong here." But you have created a path too.

Eriko Padron:
Actually, thank you and what I want to say about this is that you are right. We have to open new opportunities for the people to come for the other Latinos, and having the first in certain events in my life, also, you have this responsibility that you have to do a good work.

Speaker 3:
This is the ORISE Featurecast. Join host Michael Holtz for conversations with ORISE experts on STEM, workforce development, scientific and technical reviews, and the evaluation of radiation exposure and environmental contamination. You'll also hear from ORISE research program participants and their mentors as they talk about their experiences and how they are helping shape the future of science. Welcome to the ORISE Featurecast.

Michael Holtz:
Welcome to the ORISE Featurecast. As ever, I'm your host, Michael Holtz in the communications and marketing department at the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education, and I have the great pleasure today of talking to two people who, although we've just met, I know we're going to be great friends and we have a great topic to talk about today. I have Eriko Padron who is an ORISE fellow at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and I have Yvonne Garcia, also at the CDC. We're going to talk about the importance of outreach to Hispanic students, young Hispanic researchers to basically bring them into the world of science, but Eriko, I want to start with you. Tell me a little bit about who you're and the research that you're doing now at the CDC.

Eriko Padron:
Oh, thank you. Thank you for this amazing introduction. Well, as you see, my name is Eriko Padron. I'm originally from Mexico and so what I'm doing in the CDC, I'm an ORISE fellow here and what I do is to implement immunoassays for vital vaccine preventable diseases and also to implement these essays for evaluating vaccines. Can you repeat the first thing of the question? Sorry.

Michael Holtz:
Well, so I just asked about actually what you just told me, basically your fellowship at the CDC and what you're doing. So just I know a little bit about who you're, and we'll get more into this, but where are you from, a little bit about your background.

Eriko Padron:
Okay, perfect. So this is the part you caught, so that's good. So just continue what I was talking. So I'm originally from Mexico and I did my bachelor's degree in NAUM University in Mexico called [inaudible 00:03:19] Monterrey. I was studying biotechnology. I was very interested back then in all those things, technologies and biology. Then I decided to continue my study. I was very interested in viruses for some reason, and I decided to move to Saudi Arabia to studying in a university called King Abdullah University of Science and Technology. So I was there for two years and I was investigating one of the largest annual mass gathering in the world called the Hash Pilgrimage. So as you know, millions of muslins people, they arrived to the Mecca in Saudi Arabia, and I was kind of pioneering the study of enteric viruses from the region from the celebration and just trying to discover new viruses from these very magnificent place.
After that, I want to continue my interest in viruses, but also trying to provide some products to the people, something that I could deliver to the people to improve the health of the population. So I was very, very pleased to be accepted at the University of Oxford in England to develop vaccines for global infectious diseases. So I was actually working with very key opinion leaders in the vaccine world, and actually these people later develop some of the COVID vaccines that thank God we had during the pandemic.
So I was working with them, trying to develop new vaccine technologies for viruses, and then when the COVID happened, I moved to Mexico and I was trying to bring vaccines to Mexico actually as a consultant in a private company. So I was working with government authorities and also with key opinion leaders from the country, and it was very international driven as well because COVID were coming from a lot of parts of the world. So just trying to bring those vaccines. Sorry, I keep saying trying to, which is something very English to say, like understated things like, "Oh, you're trying." No, I was actually doing that. I was working.
We have very interesting projects. Some of them I cannot say because of some NDAs, but yeah, I was bringing COVID vaccines to Mexico and also evaluating vaccine diagnostic products to Mexico. It was very rewarding, but somehow as the next stage of my career, I wanted to come to the US because I think the US offers very great opportunities for scientists like me and I wanted to come to the US, and one of the institutions that offered me those opportunities is the CDC. I was very lucky to find a place like this with Stephen Kru, who is a team lead and I'm part of the division of viral diseases here in the CDC and a branch of viral vaccine preventable diseases, and what we do is just to implement assays, evaluate vaccines, trying to support the research in the vaccine development. We have very nice vaccines that we have used for a long time, but sometimes these vaccines, they don't work as we expect meaning that they have to be refined or sorry, this is the part of which it gets very politically driven, so I want to say the right wording for this.

Michael Holtz:
Sure.

Eriko Padron:
What I'm saying is that vaccines work of course, but sometimes they have to be refined and we have to maintain a research in the efficacy of vaccines. So that's what I wanted to say. So we're working with measles, rubella, mumps, especially interested in mumps. Mumps is an infectious disease, which we have a vaccine for, but sometimes occurring to their epidemiological data, and this is actually not that strong in my field, epidemiological data, more in the molecular biology part and immunoassays, we see that some people are getting infected, and so my job is to try to develop these immunoassays that facilitate that investigation of how these vaccines work on humans.

Michael Holtz:
I have so many questions just about the little bit that you've told me, but before I get to that. Yvonne, Eriko, obviously impressive background, has done some impressive work. Talk about the importance. Well, first of all, tell me who you are, tell me what you do at the CDC.

Yvonne Garcia:
Well, my goodness, after Eriko, I'm telling you, he's a highly valued employee at CDC, and he's also modest. He was the first Latino to be accepted at Oxford. Didn't tell you that, did he? But it falls in line with what CDC is trying to do as well and I am Yvonne Garcia, I'm a health communication specialist, not a scientist, but essentially I'm leading outreach efforts that's part of a larger team that's doing outreach and communication to minority serving institutions. I am leading the Hispanic Latino outreach, and I'll use those two terms interchangeably, but that's exactly what I do and of course, CDC is committed to building a science to technology, engineering and math, which we call STEM workforce public health that reflects the diversity of cultures, identities, perspectives, the approaches and the competencies that are represented across the United States.
So we're trying to increase the Hispanic Latino workforce in a variety of science disciplines, and that includes microbiologists, epidemiologist, health scientists, medical officers for example, statisticians, informatics. CDC has a wealth and those are just the science disciplines. So we have a wealth of disciplines, but since we're talking science, I'll keep it to science, but that's what I do at CDC. So we're hoping that by visiting universities, getting the ORISE information out as well, that will be able to increase that population because essentially, I don't know if you are aware, but essentially, the US Hispanic Latino population is 63.7 million. 37 million are of Mexican origin, which both Eriko and I are both of Mexican origin. So followed by the Puerto Rican population, which is at five million and other smaller subgroups. So after the non-Hispanic White population, Hispanic are the largest group. That's why we need to have better representation of all these disciplines at CDC, so that we can make a lasting and a positive impact on the health standards, the practices, and also making research sustainable and relevant to Hispanics.

Michael Holtz:
And on that, the population of Hispanic people in the US is growing. So it's all the more important to be able to conduct the science, translate the science into language that Spanish-speaking Hispanic people can understand, but also again, to be doing the science at the bench side out in their communities where they live.

Yvonne Garcia:
That's true, when studies are conducted in priority populations and you have no one who really represents that population group, and if it's a subpopulation for example, that's even better to have someone who understands it because they understand the social cultural aspects of the population, and if they don't and they lack that lived experience as well, they're not able to raise those issues that are key and should be considered so that essentially a lot is missed and that affects the quality and the comprehensiveness of any research investigation. So the CDC right now understands based on the data that we have a very low representation of Hispanics in general at CDC. So we're working really hard to increase it among other minority populations.

Michael Holtz:
Right, absolutely. So Eriko, I want to go back to some of what you've talked about in terms of your history. I was in particular struck by being in Saudi Arabia in Mecca doing studies of viruses, and what was that like just on a personal level, being at this revered holy site where thousands of people come for the hodge and it's part of their religious experience to make the pilgrimage, and you are there doing virology studies, which is critical when you bring that number of people to a place, understanding what could be impacting people when they gather in those kinds of numbers. Again, just out of my own curiosity, what was it like to be there?

Eriko Padron:
So that's a very interesting question and I think it has to be with valuable comments from Yvonne. As a Latino, when you are asking me this question, it has to be with my history as a Latino as well. So when I left Mexico, I wanted to develop my career and the next opportunities that I was seeing that were reachable to me was this university called King Abdullah University because they were funding my travel to go there, my flight, even my stay there and I didn't have money back then. How can I access educational quality if I don't have money for that and my dreams. Back then I was 22 and so I heard about these university and it was a very competitive process. It's a worldwide competition and I was lucky to be selected and I already knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to do viruses, infectious diseases, and they have a nice lab for that, a pathogens lab there.
When I went there is the adaptation, right? That's the first thing. I never had lived before outside Mexico. So imagine one day being in Mexico the other day, you're in this part of the world and you're going to know what to expect, and the university is in the middle of the desert. It's a very technological high-tech compound in the middle of the desert, and I arrived like three in the morning. Everything was so new for me and at the end of the day, it's like something that validate your courage. I'm trying to bring it here. I want to follow really my dreams and this is what I'm doing to follow my dreams.
Then it was offered to me, this project, the Hodge project, it was actually published in a very nice journal from the CDC actually, one of the journals of the CDC and I got interested because it was the project that was linked to clinical data with humans. I wanted to fill that impact of the human people. So this was one of the few projects back then that existed in that regard. So the Mecca, 2.5 millions of people, they arrive every year from very different locations in the world, very remote locations. So the idea and I want to be honest, I work from a lot of people, it's not only me. I was managing and directing the part of the virus part, but all other people were already conceiving this project were working with the Deputy Ministry of Health of the Kingdom for this, and also my bosses back there.
I arrived in the middle of the project, but the project was already mature to have all this data. So I was pretty lucky to be there at the right time. So I was part of managing the detection of the viruses and enteric viruses, and so we just had to screen a lot of samples. It was a lot of hard work, but when you enjoy it, you don't feel it like work. Then actually, because of this project, they got very interested in Oxford. That's why I also arrived to Oxford because it was very interesting project. We wanted to discover new viruses because of all these people that are coming from different locations. So you don't have to go to these remote places. These people come to you in this celebration, in this festival. So it was a very interesting project and I was lucky to be there.
I learned a lot. This is something that you learned through the process because you're a student and even though the outreach is high, you're still a student, but that's how you learn sometimes, and everything went fine. The results that we got, it was very interesting and yeah, that's how it happened. You can erase this from the conversation because I want to be honest with you, I couldn't arrive to the place to Mecca because it's only for Muslim people. If you're not Muslim, you don't have access to the holy city.
So we were rejected samples from this celebration, but the majority of the students were Muslims. The culture, you try to adapt and also makes you to be more and more tolerant to other cultures. There are certain situations that you can also raise this part. Yeah, coming back to what Yvonne was saying is to be a Latino, there is a certain context that comes with it. You have a certain background that comes from being a Latino, and in this case was very exotic thing like a Latino in Saudi Arabia. He calls the attention a lot, but I want to say about this is what you have to do in order to follow your dreams. As a Latino guy, you're at your 22nd birthday, you're in the other part of the world trying to follow your dreams. How did that happen? But thank God, thank life that nothing happened, traveling to other regions without knowing anyone, and you just have your talent, your knowledge, and you want to bring it.

Michael Holtz:
Just from my own experience of, I mean I didn't move to another part of the world, but another part of the country. You're there by yourself, so you're having to adapt to basically an entirely new world, a new culture, and then same thing happens when you go to Oxford, right? And as Yvonne said, first Latino student to be admitted to Oxford.

Yvonne Garcia:
Yeah, and Michael, when you think about it and actually you too, Eriko, you've built a path for others to follow because you've introduced who you are to Oxford and to Saudi Arabia coming from other areas that they may not have ever thought, "Oh, these people belong here." But you have created a path too.

Eriko Padron:
Actually, thank you and what I want to say about this is that you're right, we have to open new opportunities for the people to come for the other Latinos and having in the events in my life also, you have this responsibility that you have to do a good work, and also what Michael is saying about adaptability, it's a very important asset in your life. I've been told that I adapt really well. I don't have the introspection high level to say that, but I think it's a good asset to adapt to culturally, different languages. If you ask me right now, I don't find any issues like living with people from certain cultures. Sorry, I'm not sure that was the right wording to say, but what I want to say is that you live in such multicultural life, all the way to hear that it is a very nice experience. I really enjoy it.

Michael Holtz:
Your story amazes me and impresses me on so many levels. I want to ask you though, Eriko, has science always been a passion for you? I talked to other scientists and they knew from when they were kids or they woke up in high school and went, "Oh, this is what I want to do." What was the point for you where you knew a life in the sciences was something you wanted to pursue for yourself as a career path?

Eriko Padron:
Yeah, that's a very interesting question.

Yvonne Garcia:
When he was 1-year-old, probably.

Michael Holtz:
I mean I'm thinking that.

Eriko Padron:
I come from this region in the north of Mexico called Tamaulipas. I'm not sure if you heard it from the news and everything. It's not very known, I'm trying to be honest here, for science and research, it's the capital of Mexico. It's like the main city of one of the main cities in Mexico. My parents are high school teachers and just thinking about this question, when I was preparing for this interview, I think I got them a little bit from them. When you are a high school teacher, you tend to like science, you like teaching and everything and I think it was since a very early age, 10 years old or something I used to do in Mexico in my house, mini experiments that I thought they were experiments. I feel attached to biology stuff. I wanted to do something biology, but also liked technology.
So when I grew up, I also tend to like clinical research. So I think my path and my career has showed that technologies, immunoassays, biology because it's the human body where human beings were living things, and also the part of the clinical thing, trying to improve the health of the people with products and I think sometimes you don't get to choose your path. You have in your mind, "Oh, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that." Some of these things changed a little bit. You have to have a little bit of free elasticity as I say, to move to other paths, but I think in my career, if I look backwards, I was very lucky to construct something. It is going to something which is clinical research, technology, biology. I feel lucky also because there is some struggles as well when you are growing in life trying to look for better opportunities. So in summary, it was since I was a kid, sorry.

Michael Holtz:
No, that's great. That's great. So yeah, so since you sort of had that curiosity from when you were a kid, but it sounds like when you were in high school, you had a couple of teachers that maybe became your first mentors to help you make that decision. I want to ask you about mentorship in general. Again, it sounds like those high school teachers were early mentors for you, are there others along your journey that were important, I mean understanding what I do from talking to other researchers, mentorship is critical, right? I mean you stay on the path because you have the opportunity to be mentored by other researchers, and so that helps guide the development of your career. So for you, Eriko, who are some of those people?

Eriko Padron:
That's a very good question and I will take some seconds to think about it. There are definitely some. The thing about me is that sometimes you're so driven by research or what you're doing that you don't think about these things, but they're there. They're definitely there and what I can think about right now when we're talking about high school, I really had this cool high school teacher who was my biology teacher, and it's very important that you're being encouraged. That's the right thing. That's an important thing to do. You have to be encouraged in high school and to promote that. Actually, I'm a product of public school in Mexico. I was starting until high school in public school and I was always interested in research, and sometimes they are difficult to find mentors and people who can encourage you to study more, to be more interested.
Thinking backwards, I have to be honest, I haven't been a little bit fair with them in terms of trying to acknowledge more and I have to do that because at the end of the day, even though you're so driven and you want to be smart and everything in your career, part of your success belongs to these people. I don't think in another scenario without these people, and one of them will be my high school mentor biology, his name's Charles Chadoles in Spanish. It's not a very common Spanish name, but Chadoles and also my mentors in masters, in PhD, sometimes in science because you're learning, and these places where I've been has been very ambitious projects.
The Ministry of Health, these people from Oxford and their vaccines, there is a little bit of stress and demand for that and you have to understand as a young scientist that you have to learn that you have to be humble and modest to able to receive that information from these very acknowledgement people because at the end, they have spent a lot of years, substantial amount of years, and you have to have this humility and being humble to receive that information, and I think at the end, I wouldn't be here without them. That's an honest truth.

Michael Holtz:
On the flip side of that, Eriko, have you had the opportunity to be a mentor to other scientists, to young scientists who are truly following in your footsteps that you've had the opportunity to work with?

Eriko Padron:
To be honest, I have. I don't do it that often. To be honest, I should do it, sometimes I get submerged in the work. So I have been interviewed by the people from my master's degree. They showed me sometimes as a relatively successful graduate, and I think I like to do these talks. During the COVID pandemic, I also had the opportunity to be invited to talks, also trying to share my knowledge in COVID vaccines and it's rewarding to be honest. Sometimes as a scientist, you forget what's the main goal of what you are doing. You're just trying to polish papers, trying to do this and that, but I think at the end, the main goal is to reach the quality of life of society and that's something that you have to do to connect with people that are not that link to science, some research.

Michael Holtz:
Yvonne, Eriko is blazing the trail, right?

Yvonne Garcia:
He is.

Michael Holtz:
You said he's a valued employee of the CDC and has done some incredible work and I have no doubt will continue to do impressive work in the future. Why is it important to bring researchers like Eriko to the forefront and have this conversation, share his experience, share his career trajectory, which has been amazing. Why is that important?

Yvonne Garcia:
Well, yeah, he has been an amazing role model and when I say that Eriko in fact is going to join me next week as I make my tours to universities.

Michael Holtz:
Nice.

Yvonne Garcia:
Yes and for these students, many are undergraduates, many are graduate students in the science fields to have that one-on-one with him and also we're doing panel discussions essentially on how do we increase awareness of STEM opportunities amongst, in this particular case, Hispanics. So a lot of it is, Eriko had that already, that kind of ambition, that thought process going on in his head at a very early age, but right now, we need to reach students very early to just expose them to the world of science, and I think technologically speaking edutainment. There's so much now that can spark that interest where I'm way older, that didn't really exist when I was growing up, and I wish it had, I went into communications, but boy, I thought I didn't have that and I certainly didn't have mentors.
A lot of teachers though sometimes, they would recognize those students who had that sort of science hunger, but then left the rest out of the picture thinking, "Well, they're not interested." And that's really sad because I'm sure there are thousands of Erikos out there and that's a huge missed opportunity to not be able to reach all students at some level to see what is it that will finally click in their brain, but it's not always natural like it was for Eriko. So yeah, I think Eriko at CDC has really been great and I think because we don't have enough people at CDC who are of Mexican origin, the largest subgroup, that is why I think Eriko is a great role model and his story speaks volumes. So I'm just glad that Eriko is with our centers. We have many centers at CDC, but we're passing him around. Sorry, Eriko.

Eriko Padron:
Thank you.

Yvonne Garcia:
He's so generous with his time too. So in a sense, you are being a mentor and you just don't know it.

Eriko Padron:
Thank you, I'm just trying to discover myself in life, trying to think about this and it's very important.

Yvonne Garcia:
Yeah.

Eriko Padron:
Sorry, I have to say something and because I was the first Latino in the PhD program of clinical medicine in Oxford, not the first Latino because there are so many in Oxford, but this is also important, clinical research in science, what I was saying in Oxford, there are not too many Latinos. They were more into nodding to science or research. I was invited by the ambassador of the UK in Mexico last year, and they were inviting alumni from Oxford and all of them, they were not from science and research. I was the only one in clinical medicine.
And there were like 70 or something and we had to introduce ourself and all of them, they were outside the science and research. I was the only one in clinical stuff, medicine. I was the first Mexican in the PhD program of clinical medicine, which our programs are very old. These universities are from the 14th century and to be able to be one of the first, and also I'm not a physician, so also it was very rewarding for me, coming from an engineering, biotechnology background, I felt very pleased. So sorry, I just wanted to comment that because sometimes I don't want other people to do that, but yeah, sorry.

Michael Holtz:
No, thank you for that clarification. I think it's important and yeah, man, your work has been so impressive, just the little bit that I've gotten to hear about you in the time we've been together and I really hope that when you and Yvonne do your tour, that the students that you get to meet appreciate that, and I really hope that they can see Eriko's doing this great work, I can do this too.

Yvonne Garcia:
Exactly.

Michael Holtz:
They see themselves in you. I hope that's what you see happening as you make this tour with them on and get to talk to other students.

Yvonne Garcia:
Yeah, right and it wasn't an easy path for you, Eriko. I know it wasn't. I mean it wasn't a trajectory of from A to B, like for some students in the US. You're coming from Mexico, you go to Saudi Arabia, you had to do a lot just to get to where you want it to be.

Eriko Padron:
Yes, sometimes things, as I was saying, they don't come as planned, but the main goal in my career has been to accomplish my dreams as I see it and I think it's something that I don't see myself doing other stuff outside research and science, even though sometimes I think about it and but yeah, I think it's rewarding. At the end of the day, there are a lot of things that Latino people such as me, we can do in science or research. We have this saying in Mexico, you have the Mexican in unity. I think that's the transformation. We have a way of thinking to troubleshoot things in engineering and things. We can provide a different perspective to solve things and I think that's also have helped me to go through the PhD, to finish the PhD. How do I solve this very complicated thing, also to graduate, but yeah, and I think also my way of thinking, that has to be with Mexico as well. We celebrate that.

Yvonne Garcia:
Yeah, I'm hoping that we can open some sort of connection with some of the universities in Mexico. I know that for example, Arizona State University and UTEP actually where we're going to be in University of Texas, El Paso, they already are working with universities in the northern area of Mexico and I think that's really important because that's sort of a pathway to the future of where we're going with public health or with health and science.

Michael Holtz:
Absolutely. Well, it sounds like there are exciting days ahead for both of you. Just by way of wrapping this conversation up, I have one question for both of you and Eriko, I'll start with you, Eriko, and I love this question, I ask this in just about everyone I interview. Eriko, what brings you joy?

Eriko Padron:
Joy is something that I constantly thinking about why it brings me joy. Sometimes I think it has to be with my research and everything, but also my mother said something that we also have to learn how to be. I've been trained how to learn how to do things, but also right now, in this moment of my life, I'm trying to learn how to feel more joy, to feel more fulfilled. My work is part of that to helping the quality of life of people, but I think it's also changeable through the years. Right now, what brings me joy is to be with my family also, to feel that I'm being rewarded financially for my work also. Being a student so many years. Sorry, I wish to provide a straight answer for that, but it's something that it's in my mind all the time, so it's down turned. Sorry, it's like for the people, but I think it's a job for everybody to look for happiness, something that is not as stable. The things that make you happy change. So sorry to fail on that answer.

Michael Holtz:
No. Well, what I love about the question is that the answer is different for everybody. So Yvonne, for you, same question. What brings you joy?

Yvonne Garcia:
Oh, I got the same question. Okay, I thought it was going to be different. Actually, I've learned what has brought me joy throughout my very long career is to be able to share what I've learned with everybody and that's everyone from my son, from my family, to those I work with, anybody. I mean I love sharing my experiences and any information that will help others to be able to not only succeed in their career, but just anything that is helpful for a person just to get along in life. That brings me a lot of joy.

Michael Holtz:
I love that. Both great answers. So thank you very much for entertaining the question. Thank you for bringing to us the importance of sharing science with Hispanic young people, helping put stories like Eriko's out there so that young Hispanic students can see there's a path forward. I can be a scientist, I can be a researcher and do really amazing and great things. So Eriko Padron and Yvonne Garcia, thank you for spending this time with me. It's been a pleasure.

Yvonne Garcia:
Thank you and we hope that the ORISE fellowships becomes a much bigger pathway for students to come to CDC, so thank you for this opportunity.

Michael Holtz:
Absolutely. That is my hope as well.

Eriko Padron:
I just want to thank again the CDC and Yvonne Garcia, and my team lead with Stephen Kru for this tremendous opportunity. It has been wonderful in my experience, has been the best experience I had so far professionally speaking, so thank you.

Michael Holtz:
Awesome. That is high praise right there.

Eriko Padron:
Yeah.

Michael Holtz:
Thank you both very much.

Yvonne Garcia:
Thank you.

Speaker 3:
Thank you for listening to the ORISE Featurecast. To learn more about the Oakridge Institute for Science and Education, visit orise.orau.gov or find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram @ORISEconnect. If you like the ORISE Featurecast, give us a review wherever you listen to podcasts. The Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education is managed by ORAU for the US Department of Energy.