Guillermo Naranjo, Ph.D. Candidate
Guillermo Naranjo was born in Caracas, Venezuela in August 1988 where he learned his primary education. Being born from musician parents he learned to play violin when he was 6, joined a choir when he turned 7 and became a percussionist at the age of 12. This allowed him to join several musical groups such as orchestras, marching bands, jazz ensembles and barbershop quartets throughout his life. In 2003 he traveled with his family to Miami, FL to continue his secondary education at Miami Coral Park Senior High, where he graduated with awards and Cum Laude. In 2007 he was offered a scholarship to attend Florida Institute of Technology full time which he accepted. He pursued the degree of Space Physics which he later changed to Physics. This career path was chosen because of his desire of understanding the universal laws and behavior of his surroundings. In 2008 he joined the research of Dr. Ningyu Liu in the topic of Upward Streamers and Sprites. In 2009 he received the Best Student Showcase at Northrop Grumman award in the topic of Observation of Transient Luminous Events. He graduated in 2011 and got accepted to attend the graduate school at University of Texas at San Antonio. For two years he worked with the department of Space Physics working at Southwest Research Institute with Dr. Stefano Livi simulating and designing a time of flight detector. In addition he collaborated with Dr. Marilia Samara and Dr. Robert Michell calibrating aurora detectors and calculating the brightness of auroral events. In 2013 he received a National Institute of Health MBRS-RISE Fellowship and joined the biophysics group with Dr. Xomalin Peralta where he now works developing metamaterials to measure the resonance of selected types of biomolecules. Today he still resides in San Antonio, TX with his family.
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