Dr. Aguilar-Carreno assumed his position as Associate Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the College of Veterinary Medicine, Cornell University in July, 2017. His previous position was Assistant Professor at the Paul G. Allen School for Global Animal Health at Washington State University. He received a B.S. degree in Biochemical Engineering from Instituto Tecnologico de Tepic, Mexico. He then immigrated to the USA and obtained an M.S. degree in Biology from the California State University, Los Angeles, and a PhD degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of Southern California. He received post-doctoral training in Virology at the University of California, Los Angeles under the mentoring of Dr. Benhur Lee. His current research is on the modulation of viral entry, assembly, egress, and immune responses by the glycoproteins of emerging viruses, such as the deadly Nipah and Hendra Viruses, and has obtained RO1, R21, and R25 funding from NIAID, as well as funding from the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense. Dr. Aguilar-Carreno has extensive experience promoting the success of underrepresented minorities as a mentor to undergraduate, graduate, and post-doctoral trainees, and has been an invited speaker to various minority programs at multiple research institutions nationwide. He chaired the Committee for Minority education of the American Society of Microbiology for three years, where he led a yearly 2-day URM-targeted Microbe Academy for Professional Development (formerly known as Capstone Institute). During his time at Washington State University, Dr. Aguilar-Carreno was the chair of the Immunology and Infectious Diseases graduate program, where he was responsible for significantly increasing the proportions of both recruitment and success of URM graduate students.