Cesar Barrabi

My mother was born in Cuba and my father was born in Kansas City. My father’s father was born in Cuba, and his mother was born in Mexico. I was born in the U.S. and learned as much as I could about my Cuban and Mexican roots from my grandparents. My mother and I are the only people in our family to go to graduate school, however, I am the first to pursue a PhD. I have several cousins in STEM-related fields, but no one in my family aside from me are involved in science and medicine.

I am working on two projects related to type 2 diabetes. My first project was a systematic study looking at how chronic elevated glucose alters the beta cell proteome. I learned how to use bioinformatics tools to dissect the hidden biological findings in my dataset to further understand how glucose causes beta cell dysfunction leading to type 2 diabetes. My second project is using CRISPR-Cas9 to study a protein required for proinsulin folding.

I believe the two biggest challenges are lack of representation in leadership roles and explaining what I do to my parents. Not the science aspect, but the fact that I am a student that is financially supported to do research. For the first few years of my program, my parents would ask when I was going to get a job. Looking back at their comments are funny now, but in the moment, it was very frustrating. Hispanic families, like many other families, are very close, so they love and support me no matter what I am doing. However, my parents started their careers at a young age so it's difficult for them to see me in my late twenties as a student.