{"id":85,"date":"2019-02-13T17:39:57","date_gmt":"2019-02-13T17:39:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/liigh.unam.mx\/dortega\/?page_id=85"},"modified":"2025-07-04T22:29:16","modified_gmt":"2025-07-04T22:29:16","slug":"team","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/liigh.unam.mx\/dortega\/team\/","title":{"rendered":"Team"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" src=\"https:\/\/liigh.unam.mx\/dortega\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/d-ortega-ed-2.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-217\" srcset=\"https:\/\/liigh.unam.mx\/dortega\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/d-ortega-ed-2.jpg 300w, https:\/\/liigh.unam.mx\/dortega\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/d-ortega-ed-2-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n<p><strong>Diego Ortega Del Vecchyo<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Diego is a junior group leader at the International Laboratory for Human Genome Research. He did research on plant population genetics with Joost Van Heerwaarden and Daniel Pi\u00f1ero during his undergraduate studies. Then he studied how natural selection and demography jointly impact patterns of genetic variation in humans and canids in his PhD with John Novembre and Kirk Lohmueller. He did a postdoc with Montgomery Slatkin, where he developed new methods and theory to study past demographic history using genomic information from fossils and modern individuals. Now he is broadly interested in developing useful new analytical theory and computational methods that are useful for Population Genetics and Evolutionary Biology studies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"mailto:dortega@liigh.unam.mx\">email<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/liigh.unam.mx\/dortega\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/CV_OrtegaDelVecchyoEnglish.pdf\">CV<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/liigh.unam.mx\/dortega\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/imagen-1024x1024.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-322\" style=\"width:306px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/liigh.unam.mx\/dortega\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/imagen-1024x1024.png 1024w, https:\/\/liigh.unam.mx\/dortega\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/imagen-300x300.png 300w, https:\/\/liigh.unam.mx\/dortega\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/imagen-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/liigh.unam.mx\/dortega\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/imagen-768x768.png 768w, https:\/\/liigh.unam.mx\/dortega\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/imagen-1536x1536.png 1536w, https:\/\/liigh.unam.mx\/dortega\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/imagen-2048x2048.png 2048w, https:\/\/liigh.unam.mx\/dortega\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/imagen-1560x1560.png 1560w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n<p><strong>Valeria Cabrera Rojas<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Valeria is a student in the Undergraduate Program in Genomic Sciences at ENES Juriquilla, UNAM. She is interested in population genetics and her focus is centered on the application and development of new bioinformatic methods for data analysis. She is currently doing research looking at different signatures of the impact of directional selection.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"512\" height=\"492\" src=\"https:\/\/liigh.unam.mx\/dortega\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/LauraFigueroa-1.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-397\" style=\"width:304px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/liigh.unam.mx\/dortega\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/LauraFigueroa-1.png 512w, https:\/\/liigh.unam.mx\/dortega\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/LauraFigueroa-1-300x288.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 512px) 100vw, 512px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n<p><strong>Laura Figueroa Corona<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Laura is a postdoctoral fellow working in the lab in close collaboration with Marcela Sandoval-Velasco. She was previously a postdoctoral fellow at Northern Arizona University. Laura did a PhD at UNAM working with Daniel Pi\u00f1ero. She has a strong history in understanding the past history of pines in Mexico. She is currently working on understanding the temporal changes on pine diversity in Mexico using paleogenomic data. .<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"441\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/liigh.unam.mx\/dortega\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/SebastianIturbe-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-390\" style=\"width:308px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/liigh.unam.mx\/dortega\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/SebastianIturbe-1.jpg 441w, https:\/\/liigh.unam.mx\/dortega\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/SebastianIturbe-1-294x300.jpg 294w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 441px) 100vw, 441px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n<p><strong>Sebasti\u00e1n Iturbe Pi\u00f1a<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sebasti\u00e1n is an undergraduate student in the Genomic Sciences Program at ENES Juriquilla, UNAM. He has a strong interest in population genetics and complex trait evolution. He is currently developing a method to estimate how STRs mutate.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" src=\"https:\/\/liigh.unam.mx\/dortega\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/a-izarraras-ed-2.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-216\" srcset=\"https:\/\/liigh.unam.mx\/dortega\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/a-izarraras-ed-2.jpg 300w, https:\/\/liigh.unam.mx\/dortega\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/a-izarraras-ed-2-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n<p><strong>Alan Izarraras Gomez<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Alan has an undergraduate degree in genomic biotechnology from the UANL (Autonomous University of Nuevo Le\u00f3n) where he did research on the adaptive genetic diversity of the endangered Worthen\u2019s sparrow (<em>Spizella wortheni<\/em>). Afterwards he moved on to do a research stay at LIIGH with Maria Avila\u2019s group where he worked on human ancient genomics, in particular the genetic continuation of Native American mitochondrial haplogroups. He is currently enrolled as a PhD student in UNAM\u2019s biomedical sciences program where he will be using genome-wide local genealogies as well as the site frequency spectrum in order to develop a method to infer the distribution of fitness effects in human populations.<\/p>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-380 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/liigh.unam.mx\/dortega\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/AlejandraJimenez.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"295\" height=\"370\" srcset=\"https:\/\/liigh.unam.mx\/dortega\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/AlejandraJimenez.jpg 595w, https:\/\/liigh.unam.mx\/dortega\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/AlejandraJimenez-240x300.jpg 240w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 295px) 100vw, 295px\" \/><\/figure>\n<p><strong>Alejandra Jim\u00e9nez Marmolejo<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Alejandra is a student in the Undergraduate Program in Genomic Sciences at ENES Juriquilla, UNAM. She is interested in evolution, bioinformatics and population genetics. She is currently understanding how changing selective pressures impact patterns of genetic variation.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-345 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/liigh.unam.mx\/dortega\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Selfie25122023-2-1024x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"274\" height=\"274\" srcset=\"https:\/\/liigh.unam.mx\/dortega\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Selfie25122023-2-1024x1024.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/liigh.unam.mx\/dortega\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Selfie25122023-2-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/liigh.unam.mx\/dortega\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Selfie25122023-2-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/liigh.unam.mx\/dortega\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Selfie25122023-2-768x768.jpg 768w, https:\/\/liigh.unam.mx\/dortega\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Selfie25122023-2.jpg 1080w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 274px) 100vw, 274px\" \/><\/figure>\n<p><strong>Alessandro L\u00f3pez Hern\u00e1ndez<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Alessandro received his master&#8217;s degree in Biological Sciences at the National Autonomous University of Mexico in 2023 while working in our group. He previously worked at the Molecular Anthropology Laboratory analyzing the mitocondrial haplogroups in the teenek, a Mexican indigenous population from San Luis Potos\u00ed. He is currently a PhD student and is working on the development of a new method to infer the impact of natural selection using ancient and present-day DNA data.<\/p>\n<p>\n\n\n<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-393\" src=\"https:\/\/liigh.unam.mx\/dortega\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/AndreaQuiroz-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"312\" height=\"334\" srcset=\"https:\/\/liigh.unam.mx\/dortega\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/AndreaQuiroz-1.jpg 637w, https:\/\/liigh.unam.mx\/dortega\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/AndreaQuiroz-1-280x300.jpg 280w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 312px) 100vw, 312px\" \/><\/figure>\n<p>\n\n\n<\/p>\n<p><strong>Andrea Quiroz Gardu\u00f1o<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Andrea is pursuing an undergraduate degree in Physics Engineering at the Quer\u00e9taro Autonomous University. She is interested in developing computational methods to gain important biological insights.\u00a0 She is currently researching how stabilizing selection shapes patterns of genetic variation.<\/p>\n<h1><strong>Alumni <\/strong><\/h1>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-213 size-medium aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/liigh.unam.mx\/dortega\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/v-anorve-ed-2-300x259.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"259\" \/> <strong>Valeria A\u00f1orve Garibay<\/strong> Valeria was a research scientist that obtained her bachelor&#8217;s degree on Genomic Sciences at ENES Juriquilla, UNAM while working in our group. She has strong interests in population and evolutionary genomics. Her research in our group is related to understanding the difficulties of analyzing the evolution of complex traits in ancient samples. She developed a project to understand how natural selection impacts ancient phenotypes prediction and her work can be read <a href=\"https:\/\/www.biorxiv.org\/content\/10.1101\/2024.09.10.612181v1\">here<\/a>. She went to pursue a PhD degree at Brown University under the mentorship of Emilia Huerta-S\u00e1nchez after her research stay at our lab.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-291 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/liigh.unam.mx\/dortega\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/IMG_20221004_191344_155.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"326\" height=\"326\" srcset=\"https:\/\/liigh.unam.mx\/dortega\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/IMG_20221004_191344_155.jpg 720w, https:\/\/liigh.unam.mx\/dortega\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/IMG_20221004_191344_155-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/liigh.unam.mx\/dortega\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/IMG_20221004_191344_155-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 326px) 100vw, 326px\" \/><\/figure>\n<p><strong>Aura B. Aguilar Rold\u00e1n<\/strong> Aura is a student at ENES Juriquilla of UNAM, where she is currently enrolled in the Genomic Sciences undergraduate program. She has broad interests in bioinformatics and population genetics. She collaborated in our laboratory on a project lead by Alan Izarraras, a PhD candidate, on inferring the distribution of fitness effects in human populations using genealogical trees. She went to Miguel Renter\u00eda&#8217;s lab at QIMR Berghofer after she finished her work in our lab. <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-219 size-medium aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/liigh.unam.mx\/dortega\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/l-chavage-ed-263x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"263\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/liigh.unam.mx\/dortega\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/l-chavage-ed-263x300.jpg 263w, https:\/\/liigh.unam.mx\/dortega\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/l-chavage-ed.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 263px) 100vw, 263px\" \/> <strong>Liliana Chavaje Avila<\/strong> Liliana received her M.S. degree in Telecommunications from University of Denver in 2011. Her previous work focused in software testing and telephony applications. She was a Mathematics teacher at Tec de Monterrey Campus Queretaro for several years. She obtained a M.S. degree in Mathematical Engineering while working in our group. She worked on developing new methods to perform demographic inferences using ancient DNA. She is currently working on the industry in Quer\u00e9taro at a company called Continental.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-317 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/liigh.unam.mx\/dortega\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/WhatsApp-Image-2023-03-27-at-13.31.08-1-1024x1024.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"232\" height=\"232\" srcset=\"https:\/\/liigh.unam.mx\/dortega\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/WhatsApp-Image-2023-03-27-at-13.31.08-1-1024x1024.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/liigh.unam.mx\/dortega\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/WhatsApp-Image-2023-03-27-at-13.31.08-1-300x300.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/liigh.unam.mx\/dortega\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/WhatsApp-Image-2023-03-27-at-13.31.08-1-150x150.jpeg 150w, https:\/\/liigh.unam.mx\/dortega\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/WhatsApp-Image-2023-03-27-at-13.31.08-1-768x768.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/liigh.unam.mx\/dortega\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/WhatsApp-Image-2023-03-27-at-13.31.08-1.jpeg 1453w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 232px) 100vw, 232px\" \/><\/figure>\n<p><strong>Jes\u00fas Abad Guzm\u00e1n L\u00f3pez<\/strong> Abad is a Biotechnology Engineer from Tecnol\u00f3gico de Monterrey in Quer\u00e9taro. Some of his interests include evolution genetics, genomics, population genetics and genomic medicine. At LIIGH he is collaborating in a project in which, through\u00a0<i data-stringify-type=\"italic\">in silico<\/i> simulations, he is analyzing patterns of genetic diversity due to the impact of natural selection acting on synonymous mutations. He went on to pursue a master&#8217;s degree in Biological Sciences at the Tecnol\u00f3gico de Monterrey after he finished his stay at our lab. <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-212 size-medium aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/liigh.unam.mx\/dortega\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/x-vargas-ed-2-257x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"257\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/liigh.unam.mx\/dortega\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/x-vargas-ed-2-257x300.jpg 257w, https:\/\/liigh.unam.mx\/dortega\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/x-vargas-ed-2.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 257px) 100vw, 257px\" \/> <strong>Ximena Vargas Estrada<\/strong> Ximena was an undergraduate student at Arkansas State University, Campus Queretaro (ASUCQ) where she obtained a major in Biotechnology.\u00a0 While she was an undergraduate, she worked in our lab on the analysis of codon usage bias on patterns of genetic variation in humans. She pursued a masters degree at New York University and became a Fulbright scholar after she finished her stay at our lab.<\/p>\n<p>Are you interested in joining our lab? Please send Diego an <a href=\"mailto:dortega@liigh.unam.mx\">email<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Diego Ortega Del Vecchyo Diego is a junior group leader at the International Laboratory for Human Genome Research. He did research on plant population genetics with Joost Van Heerwaarden and Daniel Pi\u00f1ero during his undergraduate studies. Then he studied how natural selection and demography jointly impact patterns of genetic variation in humans and canids in&hellip; <\/p>\n<div class=\"readmore-wrapper\"><a href=\"https:\/\/liigh.unam.mx\/dortega\/team\/\" class=\"more-link\">Read <\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/liigh.unam.mx\/dortega\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/85"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/liigh.unam.mx\/dortega\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/liigh.unam.mx\/dortega\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liigh.unam.mx\/dortega\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liigh.unam.mx\/dortega\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85"}],"version-history":[{"count":53,"href":"https:\/\/liigh.unam.mx\/dortega\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/85\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":400,"href":"https:\/\/liigh.unam.mx\/dortega\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/85\/revisions\/400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/liigh.unam.mx\/dortega\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}