Krystell Susana Santiago Estrella is a 23 year-old Puerto Rican - Dominican biomedical engineer, singer, international award-winning director, multi-instrumentalist, actress, and researcher with 50k followers across her platforms who is best known for her critically-acclaimed short film, “Pasado Meridiano (A Todo Color)” and her independent research “Imaging of Peripheral Nerves for the Early Diagnosis of Tropical Infectious Diseases and Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS)”.
She graduated in May 2025 from Columbia University in the City of New York, where she completed a Bachelor’s in Science in Biomedical Engineering with a minor in Hispanic Studies and concentrations in Pre-Med and Medical Imaging. She was one of the class’ recipients of the Multicultural Affairs Graduation Honor Cord, was nominated to be the Senior Speaker for Columbia University’s 2025 International Student Graduation, and has been named the Elzweig Family Named Scholar for three years in a row.
She graduated as a QuestBridge National College Match Scholar, Kinesis Foundation Scholar, and Kwanza-Jones Scholar at Columbia University, and was named for multiple honors including Samuel M. Nabrit Early Career Scholar at Brown University, Biomedical Science Career Program Scholar at Harvard University, MOSTEC Scholar and Alum at MIT, Hispanic Scholarship Fund Scholar, and Member of the American Physical Society. Her research has been presented in prestigious conferences such as the New England Science Symposium at Harvard Medical School, the Undergraduate Research Symposium at Columbia University, Samuel M. Nabrit Early Career Scholars at Brown University, the CUWiP 2025 Conference by American Physical Society hosted by NYU, and the Northeastern Bioengineering Conference hosted by NYU.
Her work has been highlighted and presented on national television and newspapers, including "Despierta con CDN", "El Plato del Día", "Al Límite con Rafaelina Bisonó", "El Caribe", "TRA Noticias", “El Show del Mediodía”, and “Noticentro Edición Estelar”. She’s been interviewed as an artist in NYFW Red Carpets, and was selected as an Emerging Artist through the Dale Tú Instagram Creators for the 2024 MUSA Latin Songwriters Hall of Fame Awards.
She’s currently a film actress and recording artist collaborating with Cine Innova Productions, with four films underway. She’s a lab assistant at a local clinical laboratory in Puerto Rico, and a mentor to high school Puerto Rican students through Kinesis. She’s in the process of applying to and deciding between JD-PhD and graduate-level programs to further her interdisciplinary career of biomedical engineering research and science/public policy + advocacy.
