Lab Members | Unguez Lab | New Mexico State University

Graciela Unguez, PhD
Principal Investigator
E-mail: gunguez@nmsu.edu
Office: (575)646-7963
Lab: (575)646-5652
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Dr. Unguez obtained her PhD degree from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) under the mentorship of Dr. Reggie V. Edgerton. At UCLA, her research interests on the mechanisms responsible for the formation and plasticity of electromotor circuits expanded using various mammalian animal model systems. She completed postdoctoral studies with Dr. Harold Zakon at the University of Texas at Austin, who introduced her to the advantages of the electromotor system of electric fish to study how the skeletal muscle program is modified to switch to become the electric organ, that is, a non-contractile tissue specialized to generate electricity, and determine the role played by the nervous system in the differentiation and plasticity of electrogenic cell types. Her research also focuses on studying the robust regeneration capability of electric fish species to understand the processes of myogenesis and muscle transdifferentiation into electrogenic cell types using a wide range of in vivo and in vitro approaches and cellular, molecular, and physiological tools.

Dr. Unguez has served in organizations that promote mentoring and professional opportunities to undergraduate, graduate, and post-doctoral trainees in biomedical scientific research. These include: the NMSU Linkage Fellow to increase the participation of underrepresented minority scientists and students in educational and research activities supported by the American Society for Cell Biology Minority Affairs Committee (ASCB-MAC) and active participation as the representative for the Society of Developmental Biology in the FASEB Training and Career Opportunities Committee. She has been a distinguished member of the Teaching Academy at NMSU, was named a National Academies Education Fellow in the Life Sciences, and has served as a member of the Executive Committee for the National Academies Summer Institute on Undergraduate Education in Biology, and is the principal investigator of an NSF grant to the Society for Developmental Biology to recruit and mentor underrepresented minority and disabled students into scientific research in developmental biology.