Diversity in Life Sciences

Rafael E. Luna, Ph.D. earned his bachelor’s degree in Biological Sciences from Southern University (Historically Black College and University) in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. During his junior year at Southern, he was one of six individuals selected from a nationwide competition to participate in the inaugural Biomedical Research Training Program at the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute at NIH, which ignited a passion for biomedical research. Dr. Luna thoroughly enjoyed his biomedical research experience, as he subsequently earned his doctorate in Biological Sciences at LSU.

Dr. Luna performed his postdoctorate research at Harvard Medical School, which centered on elucidating the sequence of protein-protein interactions leading to the decoding of the initial start codons of messenger RNAs. Dr. Luna held the position of Instructor in the Department of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at Harvard Medical School. He also held the role as Program Director for Senior Faculty Promotions in the Office for Faculty Affairs at Harvard Medical School. As the previous Executive Director of the National Research Mentoring Network (NRMN) and the former Principal Investigator of the Administrative Core of NRMN located at Boston College, Dr. Rafael E. Luna utilized data analytics to strategically grow NRMN and effectively reach all 50 states, including Hawaii, Alaska & Puerto Rico.

In addition to serving as a leader in higher education, Dr. Luna is the author of the book, The Art of Scientific Storytelling, which provides a narrative roadmap for scientists publishing in peer-review journals. He is a dynamic speaker and has taught his Scientific Storytelling method throughout the United States, Europe and Asia, e.g. Harvard Medical School, Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT-Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer, Wyss Institute at Harvard, Harvard University, Children’s Hospital-Boston, Brigham & Women’s Hospital, Boston University Medical School, Dana- Farber Cancer Institute, University of Bergen (Norway), Saarland University (Germany), University of Graz (Austria), University College of London (England), Beijing (China) and many more.