University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez
yareni.lara@upr.edu
she / her / hers
CV

Yareni P Lara-Rodríguez received her bachelor’s degree (2006) in manufacturing engineering and her master’s degree (2010) in systems engineering from Autonomous University of Nuevo León (UANL), Mexico. In 2013, she earned a master’s degree in science mechanical engineering from the University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez campus (INME-UPRM), where she currently is a Ph.D. student in mechanical engineering with a specialization in bio/micro scale engineering. She has 10 years of experience teaching in the engineering field and also boasts a long list of volunteer roles, many of which have focused on encouraging young women to pursue careers in STEM. Her research addresses wound healing acceleration, and she is performing experiments to observe and characterize the collagen synthesis process in fibroblast cells under external loads, principally using fluorescent microscopy. She is the recipient of several honors, including a 2019 international fellowship with the American Association of University Women. She serves as spokesperson for the Association of International University Community and is the mentoring lead for the Society of Women Engineers in the Latin Affinity Community for FY20. Other memberships include American Association of University Women, American Society for Engineering Education, and Biomedical Engineering Society. As a professor, she plans to teach in the topics of biomedical devices and geometrical design.

Research Interests

Collagen synthesis study by cellular mechanotransduction