Elba Serrano

Elba E. Serrano
Elba Serrano speaks at a Hypothesis Webinar in 2017
Born	Old San Juan
Alma mater	University of Rochester Stanford University
Awards	Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring (2018)
Scientific career
Institutions	New Mexico State University University of California, Los Angeles

Elba E. Serrano is the Regents Professor of Neuroscience at the New Mexico State University. Her research considers the role of ion channels in the reception and transduction of stimuli. She is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and won the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS) Distinguished Research Mentor Award in 2015.

Early life and education

Serrano was born in Old San Juan. Her father was a member of the United States Army and a Vietnam veteran, which meant that Serrano spent her childhood in between the Caribbean, Central America and Taiwan. She attended almost ten different schools and eventually graduated from the Nurnberg American High School. She earned a Bachelor's degree in physics at the University of Rochester, where she became interested in biological and sensory processes. Whilst a physics student Serrano was one of two women out of eighty students. She moved to Stanford University for her doctoral degree, where she earned a PhD in biophysics under the supervision of Robert Schimke in 1983. Her dissertation considered the movement of ions across the cell membrane. After earning her PhD Serrano worked at Stanford University and the University of California, Los Angeles Medical School as a postdoctoral researcher. Here she became interested in the inner ear, in particular, the mechanosensory hair cells.

Research and career

Serrano joined the New Mexico State University in 1992, and was made Regents Professor in 2009. Her research considers the ear, hearing and balance. She studies the formation of sensory organs and the ways nerve cells acquire their electrical phenotypes. The structure and mechanisms responsible for pressure reception and signal processing are biopolymers, transducer channels and mechanoreceptors. To study these she has developed approaches to image neurons and sensory cells in vivo, primarily using multi-photon microscopy.

Mentoring and advocacy

Serrano was selected as the American Association for the Advancement of Science International Lecturer on Women in Science in 2002. During this time she travelled around Brazil speaking about her experiences as a woman scientist. She spent her sabbatical at the Ecole Normal Superieure, where she worked in the Laboratoire de Neurobiologie.

At New Mexico State University Serrano served as Principal Investigator of the Research Initiative for Scientific Enhancement (RISE) and BP-ENDURE Building Research Achievement in Neuroscience (BRAiN) programs, which look to support students into scientific careers. From 1992 to 2018 over one hundred students have completed research projects in the Serrano laboratory, half of whom were women and over 60% are from underrepresented groups. She was awarded the 2015 Society for the Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS) Distinguished Mentor award. In 2018 Serrano was awarded the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring. She has also been awarded the Alfred P. Sloan Distinguished Mentor Prize. She has previously served on Francis Collins' National Institutes of Health Advisory Committee. She was also part of their Working Group on Diversity, as well as on the NIH BRAIN Initiative Neuroethics Working Group.

In 2018 it was announced that the National Science Foundation would establish the National Resource Hub for STEM Education at Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI Resource Hub) at New Mexico State University. HSI is led by Serrano and looks to increase the recruitment and retention of STEM students.

Selected publications

Her publications include;

• Serrano, Elba E. (1988). "Red light stimulates an electrogenic proton pump in Vicia guard cell protoplasts". PNAS. 85 (2): 436–440. doi:10.1073/pnas.85.2.436. PMID 2829187.
• Serrano, Elba E. (1989). "Sensory Transduction and Electrical Signaling in Guard Cells". Plant Physiology. 91 (3): 795–799. doi:10.1104/pp.91.3.795.

Serrano is an editor for PeerJ