Iván Vidal González: Bio

Iván Vidal González

Prepared by Iván's advisor, Dr. Gregory Quirk

Iván Vidal González was born on July 31st, 1981 in Ponce, Puerto Rico. He expressed an interest in medicine and science growing up. In high school, he was accepted into the science-focused Centro Residencial de Oportunidades Educativas de Mayagüez (CROEM) which allowed him to earn his diploma one year earlier than the norm. He started college in the summer of 1998 at the University of Puerto Rico at Ponce and later transferred to the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Puerto Rico in Ponce where he obtained his Bachelorís of Science degree in Chemistry.

As an undergraduate, Iván worked long hours as a volunteer in Dr. Gregory J. Quirk's lab at the Ponce School of Medicine (PSM). Shortly after, he was accepted to train as a Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation Program fellow. Because of his productivity and dedication, he later was accepted into the Minority Access to Research Careers fellowship program, a highly competitive National Institutes of Health minority research training program.

His neuroscience interests stemmed from the research in Dr. Quirk's lab, which focused on the neural basis of fear and extinction. He participated in a project using single-neuronal recordings that allowed him to ìinterviewî responses from cells in the medial prefrontal cortex. He was acknowledged for his contributions in an article published in Nature (Milad and Quirk, 2002).

After earning his B.S. in Chemistry, he was accepted into the Doctoral program in Biomedical Sciences at PSM in 2002 and co-authored an article published in Behavioral Neuroscience (Milad, Vidal-González, and Quirk, 2004). Iván passed his comprehensive exam for Ph.D. candidacy with the highest grade in the history of the Graduate Program at Ponce School of Medicine. His contributions and dedication to science were noted through attendance and presentations at several conferences including the Society for Neuroscience conference, Conference on Neurobiology of Learning and Memory at the University of California, Irvine, Annual Health and Emotions Meeting at University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the Marine Biological Laboratories summer program.

Iván's significant research contributions led to a total of 4 authored manuscripts before the completion of his Ph.D. In the spring of 2005, Iv·n and the Quirk lab organized an international conference in Ponce, Puerto Rico entitled "Extinction: The Neural Mechanisms of Behavior Change" which brought the neuroscience world together in his home town. He was beginning his dream of understanding and finding cures for disorders as well as promoting science in Puerto Rico.

Iván's scientific successes will be immortalized in the form of poster presentations and published manuscripts. His heart, however, was much larger and his spirit will be remembered by the many people fortunate to have had him in their lives. Iv·n always found time to spend with his family, hang out with friends, and play his favorite sports. We will all miss Iv·nís kindness, his basketball skills, his comical golf swing, and his ability to make us happy. He had a distinct laugh that brought smiles and laughs to those that heard him down the hall. He was loved by everyone at PSM, particularly the Quirk lab. He is physically missed, but will live eternally in everyone he touched. He drowned while successfully saving his girlfriendís life at a beach on August 25, 2006. May God bless his soul