Dr. Valeria M. Reyes Ruiz is originally from Puerto Rico and obtained her BS in Microbiology from the University of Puerto Rico in Humacao. In 2014, she started her Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania under the mentorship of Dr. Sunny Shin. Her thesis work focused on human-specific innate immune responses to the bacterial pathogen Salmonella. She graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 2019. From there, she moved to Vanderbilt University Medical Center to continue her postdoctoral fellowship. She now studies the role of dietary metals in host-pathogen interactions that dictate disease outcomes of Staphylococcus aureus.