Title: Associate professor of mathematics, San Francisco State University

Education: Ph.D., Florida State University; B.Sc., National University of Mexico

Age: 40

Career Mentors: De Witt Sumners, Florida State University

“Math is so boring. Math is so hard.” Dr. Mariel Vazquez often hears these comments from elementary school students. It pains her because she always has loved mathematics.

Vazquez is an internationally known researcher in the emerging field of DNA topology. Vazquez, an associate professor of mathematics at San Francisco State University, studies how human DNA, the DNA of bacteria and the DNA of viruses become untangled. Her work could affect the design of antibiotics and anti-cancer drugs.

Earlier this year, Vazquez received a National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development, or CAREER, award for her research.

A native of Mexico and the daughter and granddaughter of engineers, Vazquez was drawn early on to math. “I loved math but didn’t think becoming a mathematician was a career option,” she says. In high school she became passionate about molecular biology and enjoyed working with DNA and learning about proteins and cells.

At the National University of Mexico, or UNAM, Vazquez pursued mathematics, earning a research fellowship to the Mathematics Institute. As she became more interested in pure mathematics, she started losing hope of finding a career connection to molecular biology. One day when she was a sophomore she saw a flier for a series of lectures about knot theory and the study of DNA. “A friend and I went. It was intimidating, and I felt overwhelmed by all that information,” she recalls. “I didn’t understand most of it, but that day I discovered what I wanted to do.”

She combined her interests of pure mathematics and molecular biology and focused on the study of the emerging field of DNA topology.