Juan was born in the state of Michoacán, Mexico, raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, and lived most of his adulthood life in Chico, CA. While living in Chico, Juan obtained his A.A. degree from Butte Community College and his B.S. in chemistry from CSU Chico, graduating with honors in the major. During his time at CSU Chico, Juan was actively engaged in undergraduate research under the tutelage of Dr. David Ball. Juan first worked on developing a synthetic route to produce the degradates of the pesticide Chlorantraniliprole to be used as standards for HPLC analysis by the Tjeerdma group in the environmental toxicology department at UC Davis. During his senior year, Juan worked on investigating a generalized synthetic route to produce naturally occurring durynes extracted from sea sponges for use in biological studies. Juan is now attending the University of California Santa Barbara where he is working towards his Ph.D. in organic chemistry.

Fun Facts

In his free time, Juan enjoys biking, cooking, and trying out local breweries.