Diana Marcela Bolaños Rodríguez facts for kids

Diana Marcela Bolaños Rodríguez is a famous Colombian scientist. She is a marine biologist, which means she studies ocean life. Diana is known for her work on tiny sea creatures called platyhelminths, also known as flatworms. She has won several important awards for her research. In 2010, she received the L'Oréal-UNESCO Fellowship for Women in Science. She was also named Colombian biologist of the year in 2012. The BBC even listed her as one of the top ten women in science in Latin America in 2013.

Biography

Diana Bolaños Rodríguez was born in 1981 in Bogotá, Colombia. She grew up in Bogotá. When she was 19, she started studying at the Universidad Jorge Tadeo Lozano. This university campus is in Santa Marta, which is on the Caribbean coast of Colombia.

University Studies and Research

Diana finished her first degree with a special project on flatworms. In 2003, she went to the University of New Hampshire (UNH) in the United States. She earned her PhD in zoology from UNH in 2008. Zoology is the study of animals. She even won an award for her excellent research there.

Her research focused on polyclad flatworms. These are a type of marine worm. They are special because they can regrow parts of their bodies. This happens thanks to tiny cells called stem cells.

Return to Colombia and Awards

In 2008, Diana married an American named Joseph Dunn. She had met him while studying in New Hampshire. After getting married, she returned to Colombia. She continued her research there. She created a large database of different flatworm species. This database helps organize them into their taxonomic groups, which is like sorting them into families.

Diana also started teaching. She became a visiting professor at the University of the Andes. In 2010, she received the L'Oréal-UNESCO Fellowship for Women in Science. She used this award to do more advanced research at the University of the Andes. Later, she became an assistant professor at the Universidad de Cartagena.

In 2012, Diana was honored as the Colombian biologist of the year. The next year, in 2013, the BBC recognized her. They named her one of the top ten women scientists in Latin America.

Ongoing Research

Diana Bolaños continues her important research today. She compares polyclads, planarians, and other platyhelminths. She studies how these different flatworms can regrow their body parts.

She has also written many articles for science journals. These articles are reviewed by other scientists. Some journals include Evolution & Development and Journal of Natural History. Her work covers topics like evolution and how living things are classified (called biological systematics). A new flatworm species, Bisacculosuteri marcelae, was even named after her in 2019!

See also

In Spanish: Diana Marcela Bolaños para niños