Faculty Spotlight: Marla Gomez

Marla Gomez, MS, joined the Department of Biology at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette as an instructor in August 2018. Ms. Gomez was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico. She obtained her Bachelor of Science degree in Biology from the University of Puerto Rico—Mayagüez Campus and became a member of several honor societies including the Beta Beta Beta Biological Honor Society, Sigma Xi, and Phi Kappa Phi. She earned the Master of Science degree in Biology (Neuroscience) from Purdue University, where her research involved nerve cord regeneration of the medicinal leech. She also served as the Biology Department’s Neurobiology student representative and as an international student contact for the department. After completing the master's degree, she had the opportunity to be part of a lab in the Oak Ridge National Labs in Tennessee that studied the effects of DNA damage and repair of telomeres. After completing the project, she moved to the state of Louisiana where she has worked at Pennington Biomedical Research Center and the LSU Health Sciences Center in New Orleans. Her latest research included the study of lung gene expression in response to alcohol exposure and how it affects the lung's immune response. She was an Instructor of Biological Sciences at Nicholls State University for nine years prior to joining UL Lafayette.

Contact Ms. Gomez through this link:
marla.gomez@louisiana.edu