Silvia Huerta Lopez, a 2016 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, has received a Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans, which provides graduate school funding for immigrants and children of immigrants to the United States.
She is among the 30 chosen as PD Soros Fellows from nearly 2,000 applicants. Each Fellow receives as much as $90,000 for their graduate studies. Huerta Lopez is currently a graduate student in the biological and biomedical sciences program at Harvard Medical School, where she investigates the neurobiology of sensory perception.
Huerta Lopez graduated with a bachelor’s degree in biology from Penn’s College of Arts and Sciences. She previously had earned an associate degree in biology from Essex County College in New Jersey and received a Jack Kent Cooke Foundation Scholarship.
At Penn, Huerta Lopez began her research training in the laboratory of Robert Heuckeroth at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, studying the molecular and cellular mechanisms that control the development of the enteric nervous system, which regulates the gastrointestinal tract, and the genetic basis of Hirschsprung’s disease, a rare birth defect in which the nerves of the intestines do not form properly. Her research was published in the journals Gastroenterology and Developmental Biology. She also worked at Puentes de Salud health clinic in Philadelphia to provide improved health literacy and access to medical care for undocumented immigrants without health insurance.
She began her medical and research training through the dual-degree M.D./Ph.D. program at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. While at Harvard, she has co-founded Quetzales de Salud, a nonprofit that aims to improve access to primary medical care for undocumented immigrants. She received the 2022 Dean’s Community Service Award in recognition of her work during the pandemic.
Huerta Lopez grew up in the rural area of El Zapote de Cuendeo in Michoacan, Mexico, and immigrated to the U.S. with her family when she was 6, settling in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, an experience she says influenced her to become an advocate for undocumented immigrants and patients.
Huerta Lopez is Penn’s 22nd Paul & Daisy Soros Fellow since the fellowship program was founded in 1998, according to the Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships.
