about me
If you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else.
―Toni Morrison
WHAT UP!
🌴 Howdy! I’m JP Flores (he/him).
I am a computational biologist, science communicator, and community builder interested in how scientific discovery can better serve society.
🔬 I completed my PhD in Bioinformatics & Computational Biology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where I studied how the genome reorganizes in response to environmental stress in the Phanstiel Lab.
🧠 I am currently a Fulbright Scholar in Milan, Italy, working with Dr. Michele Gabriele at the San Raffaele Telethon Institute for Gene Therapy (SR-Tiget). Following my Fulbright, I will join Case Western Reserve University as a HHMI Gilliam Postdoctoral Fellow in the lab of Dr. Marissa Scavuzzo.
🗣️ Beyond research, I am a Co-Founder of Science For Good, host of From Where Does It STEM?, and a senior editor & writer for GeneBites.
✊🏽 Inspired by my own journey as a first-generation college student, I am passionate about helping the next generation of scientists thrive. I have helped create resources including the Atlas of Inspiring Latinx Scientists, the Atlas of Inspiring Hispanic/Latinx Scientists, the Index of Inspiring Black Scientists, and an Atlas of Inspiring Indigenous Scholars (coming soon!).
⚖️ I am also active in science policy and public engagement through the Scientist Network for Advancing Policy (SNAP).
🎓 Before graduate school, I attended Occidental College in Los Angeles, where I played NCAA Division III baseball, majored in Cellular & Molecular Biology, minored in Public Health, and studied the venom of fish-hunting cone snails.
🎶 Outside of science, you’ll usually find me listening to music, exploring new cities, cheering on the Los Angeles Dodgers, or dreaming up new ways to immerse scientists in the communities they serve. My headphone fuel for all of the above:
