Veronica G. Martinez Acosta, PhD

Veronica G. Martinez-Acosta, PhD is a professor of biology at the University of the Incarnate Word, a Hispanic-serving institution in San Antonio, Texas. Martinez Acosta earned a PhD in zoology from Texas A&M University in the laboratory of Dr. Mark Zoran. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Texas under the direction of Dr. Bing Zang, now at the University of Missouri. Her lab investigates cellular and molecular mechanisms governing neural regeneration and wound healing using the annelid worm, Lumbriculus variegatus. Her most recent work includes a collaboration characterizing photoreception in Lumbriculus. This research, carried out primarily by undergraduates, has been supported by the NSF and the DoD. Veronica has extensive experience teaching undergraduate courses in cellular biology, developmental biology, and the neurosciences. She has proudly served as an officer for the Faculty for Undergraduate Neuroscience (FUN) and currently serves as a member of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology Education Committee. She mentors junior faculty and postdocs through the BRAINS program and graduate students in the MBL SPINES program, for which she served as a faculty member in 2016 and 2017. She has embraced her role within the scientific community to serve as a voice for those who are marginalized through invited talks and proceedings on justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion in STEM. At the MBL, Martinez Acosta attended the MBL SPINES course in 2002 as a graduate student and returned as a Whitman Center scientist in 2016. She has served as the co-director/co-PI of the MBL NSF REU program, Biological Discovery in Woods Hole, Massachusetts for five years and is an active member of the Whitman Center Steering Committee.