Dr. Richard Noel, an original native of upstate NY, has a BS in Biology from Boston College and a PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He moved to Puerto Rico in 1998 and began working at the Ponce School of Medicine (currently Ponce Health Sciences University). In 2015, he was named Chair of the newly formed Department of Basics Sciences and is a professor in the Division of Biochemistry. He is the Co-PI of the PHSU RCMI Program since 2014 and the founding Director of the Investigator Development Core START program. Dr. Noel is an accomplished and experienced biomedical investigator and research mentor.