Women Changing the World: Lives in Science and Technology

Por favor, seleccione una forma válidaJoin us for an inspiring conversation led by MIT Professor Martha Gray, Director of Madrid-MIT M+Visión Consortium and, as Director of the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, the first woman to lead a science or engineering department at MIT.

This conversation includes three distinguished Spanish women in science and medicine: Isabela del Alcázar Bejumea, María Luaces, and Francisca Mulero. They will discuss experiences with power, opportunity, obstacles, and achievements in the U.S. and Spain. Moderated by MIT Professor and President of the International Institute Margery Resnick, this evening will include a Q&A session with the public. Biographies provided below.

Simultaneous translation will be provided.

This event continues the International Institute’s celebration of the opening of the American Space Madrid.

Martha L. Gray, PhD


J W Kieckhefer Professor of Medical and Electrical Engineering, HST, MIT Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Director, Madrid-MIT M+Visión Consortium

Martha Gray has led a multifaceted career in which she has conducted research to better understand and prevent osteoarthritis, led a preeminent academic unit, and served the profession through work with organizations and institutions. Her research has centered over the past 15 years on ways to nondestructively visualize cartilage macromolecules in vivo and in vitro. Many in industry and academia are now using the MR method developed by her group, known as dGEMRIC.

Dr. Gray is the former director of the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology (HST). During and since her 13 year tenure as head of HST, she shepherded its vigorous growth so that now it boasts a community of over 400 students, 65 faculty and nearly 200 affiliated faculty who create a multi-disciplinary and multi-professional environment in classrooms, hospitals and laboratories and seek to advance human health.

Most recently her efforts have focused on advising other institutions and governments as they pursue similar efforts. For example, she serves as the Director of the Madrid-MIT M+Vision Consortium. Dr. Gray was the first woman to lead a science or engineering department at MIT. She is an elected fellow of the AAAS, the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) and the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineers (AIMBE). She is associate editor of the Annual Reviews of Biomedical Engineering.

Isabela del Alcázar Bejumea, PhD, MBM

Polypeptide Therapeutic Solutions S.L.

Dr de Alcázar received her Masters in Biotechnology Management from the IE Business School in Madrid, as well as her PhD in Molecular Biology at the Autonoma University of Madrid. She is now CEO of Polypeptide Therapeutic Solutions S.L. a company specializing in the synthesis of high quality polypeptides to be used by pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries. She is also a partner and co-founder of BioCapital Advisors, the first exclusively Spanish broker specializes in finding, analyzing, and assessing business projects in the biomedical and personalized medicine sectors, in order to seek private funding for its development. She has held the position of Investment Advisor at Step Up Capital and has served as a researcher at both the National Center of Biotechnology and the Center of Molecular Biology “Severo Ochoa” at the Autonoma University of Madrid.

María Luaces, MD, PhD 

Hospital Clínico San Carlos

Dr. Luaces is a cum laude graduate of Santiago de Compostela Medical School. She completed her Cardiology residency training at Hospital Clínico San Carlos, in combination with an intense clinical research in infectious endocarditis that led to her PhD at Universidad Complutense de Madrid. She specialized in cardiac imaging, including a fellowship in Cardiovascular CT and MRI at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. She served in the Clinical Research Program in Medical Imaging at Hospital Universitario de Fuenlabrada, and she has joined the Cardiovascular Imaging Division in the Cardiovascular Institute at Hospital Clínico San Carlos, Madrid. Dr Luaces joined the Madrid/ MIT M+ Vision Consortium as a Coordinator for the Clinical Program. Her research interests are focused on obesity-related heart damage, with several funded ongoing projects including a comprehensive network of local institutions- Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos de Madrid and Universidad Politécnica de Madrid.

Francisca Mulero, MD, PhD

Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Oncologicas

Dr. Mulero, born in Mallorca, obtained her MD degree from the Universidad de Alicante and was awarded her MIR as a Fellow in Nuclear Medicine at the Hospital Universitario Virgen de la Arrixaca in Murcia. She obtained her First Class Honours PhD degree from Universidad de Murcia for her research focusing on the differential diagnosis of breast injuries using MIBITc-99m Scintigraphy.

Since 1994 she has worked as a Medical Scintigraphy Specialist at the Nuclear Medicine Department, the Hospital Virgen de la Arrixaca, focusing on imaging diagnosis and therapeutics. From 2005-2007 she worked as Medical PET-CT Specialist at the same Hospital. In 1998 she was issued a Certificate of Supervisor of Radioactive Installations by the Consejo de Seguridad Nuclear (CSN) which she has maintained currently active. Dr. Mulero also obtained a Dupont Fellowship (1999-2000) for the study “Tc-99m Sestamibi Scintimammography in the evaluation of response of breast carcinoma to chemotherapy” and was awarded the following degrees in 2004: Positron Emission Tomography (PET) Scanning in Breast Cancer, PET in the evaluation of Alzheimer and Dual Modality PET/CT.

Dr. Mulero joined the CNIO as head of the Molecular Imaging Unit responsible for setting up, organization and management.