Mel Ortiz Alvarez de la Campa is a Puerto Rican & queer scientist, writer and artist. They graduated from the University of Puerto Rico-Rio Piedras with a B.S. in Integrative Biology and a minor in Medical Humanities in 2021. They are currently a third year Pathobiology PhD candidate at Brown University, as well as an NSF GRFP fellow. Their research focuses on finding a link between early life adversity, anxiety and the microbiome. Outside of the lab, Mel is co-founder of Ciencia Pa' Todes, a Spanish-language sci-com initiative based in the Caribbean.