Mari de la Cruz Bonilla about Cullen Taniguchi

Mari de la Cruz Bonilla, Clinical Fellow at the Department of Pediatrics, Section of Hematology-Oncology at the Baylor College of Medicine, shared on X/Twitter:

“Many of Cullen Taniguchi’s trainees partake in academic tweeting because he made us sit through a 30min presentation full of GIFs that explained the benefits of having an academic account and then watched as we created them before we could leave on a Friday afternoon.

Thus it seems fit that I use this platform to pay homage, specifically today, to the work he did mentoring a whole crew of Puerto Ricans! Here goes another tweetorial about how great he was!

I was Cullen’s first-ish grad student (officially 50% which is why my claim to this title is weak since Carolina Garcia was his actual first graduate student). This was the start of 9 years of direct mentorship to many PR scientists.

Cullen is also an island person (albeit from a different ocean than me) and he got my island identity. He understood when I shared the importance of having a role where I could mentor Puerto Rican trainees achieve whatever career in STEM they were interested in.

In fact, today as I sat with my memories of him I had this realization that he had drawn an exact map as to how I could train Puerto Ricans, even if I didn’t have the opportunity to return home during this lifetime.

You see, after me his became THE DESTINATION lab for Puerto Rico trainees through the partnership between
Medical Scholl of University of Puerto Rico and MD Anderson Cancer Center UTHealth Houston Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, clearly because I hyped his summer gatherings with BBQ (and also maybe how amazing he was to work with).

Through the years he has mentored countless Medical School of University of Puerto Rico and University of Puerto Rico trainees as summer students, grad students, post docs and the latest: he has sponsored students that are working on eventually applying to grad school so they may learn and build a research portfolio.

I watched him welcome us, make sure we had ample opportunities to learn, teach us how to be confident and always made sure we knew we belonged. He emphasized how important it was that we knew what our representation in STEM brought to the table.

He cared that he pronounced our names appropriately (I can hear him clearly say my name with his interestingly rolled R). He cared that we had time off to make sure our families were safe after the hurricanes.

He was there for medical emergencies, weddings, funerals, award ceremonies, graduations, oral presentations at meetings (and he tweeted about every single one-with pictures). He was present and dependable.

And not only did he impact students in mainland US but he eventually was able to teach cancer biology in Puerto Rico and help establish intestinal organoid cultures at University of Puerto Rico
Comprehensive Cancer Center.

He even committed to become a Co-PI for the grant that funded the collaboration that brought all the summer students to MD Anderson Cancer Center UTHealth Houston Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. He was committed to ensure the longevity and success of this training program.

He illustrated for Carolina Garcia, Vince Bernard-Pagan and me how we too can become part of the team that continues to grow Puerto Rican representation in STEM. And he did it with such ease and grace.

With time he became a HUGE impact in so many of our careers. I’ve seen and heard from many that we wouldn’t be where we are today if it wasn’t for his mentorship and sponsorship. For that I will always be grateful.”

Source: Mari de la Cruz Bonilla/Twitter