Aldo A. Arellano
He/Him
I am gay and I am a microbial ecologist.//
My name is Aldo and I’m a gay microbial ecologist studying mosquito-microbe interactions in the context of an obligate mosquito-plant symbiosis. I started out in ecology looking at implicating microbes in high-level processes at ecosystem scales and dabbled in organismal biology and microbial oceanography before settling on studying insect symbiosis for my PhD. I’m also a first-generation college student and a child of immigrants from Mexico. I’ve had to do a lot of “figuring-out” both in terms of my research interests and navigating my queer identity in STEM, but that’s why I think visibility and ownership is so important. I believe that my perspective and passion in science arise not in spite of my identity, but because of it.