Associate Professor
Cristina Zavaleta was born and raised in McAllen, Texas, a small town on the border with Mexico. She received her bachelor’s degree in Nuclear Medicine at the University of Incarnate Word, a small private university in San Antonio. After graduating, she started in the Medical Physics graduate program at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio where she focused on utilizing radioactive nanoparticles for the treatment of ovarian cancer. After receiving her PhD, she began a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University where she dedicated the majority of her time developing a new Raman imaging strategy for cancer detection. She is currently an associate professor at the University of Southern California in the department of Biomedical Engineering. Her lab focuses on providing physicians with better molecular imaging tools to improve cancer detection.
Awards & Certifications
Viterbi Junior Research Award
EIAP Scholar selected by NCI
LABest Professor Spotlight Award
Great Minds in Stem Outstanding Technical Achievement Award
USC Mentoring Award for Mentoring Undergraduate Students
Outstanding Engineering Achievement Merit Award from The Engineer’s Council
Carl Storm Award
Powell Foundation Award
Accreditations
SPIE International Society for Optics and Photonics
WMIC World Molecular Imaging Congress
Doctor of Philosophy recognised by University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio
Bachelor of Science recognised by Incarnate Word University
Areas of Expertise
Got a Question for Cristina Zavaleta, PhD?
Get in touch using the contact form linked here and we'll get back to you shortly.
