Maraliz Fischler-Barraza

Maraliz is an adjunct faculty at Southwestern College since 2015. She is from Tijuana, Mexico and is the only scientist in her family and she finds it a privilege that her passion has turned into a career. She teaches introductory Biology courses to mainly non–science major students. For her graduate work at California State University at Los Angeles (CSULA) she focused on the pathways dictating muscle development and the molecular switches for making the transition of myoblast (muscle stem cell) to a fully differentiated, multinucleated striated muscle. Prior to her work in muscle development, she was a laboratory manager for Dr. Francisco Villarreal at UCSD, focusing on understanding the cardio protective effects of a component of dark chocolate on adult male mice after an ischemic event.

She is currently focused on assuring that all of her students are exposed to the logic of the scientific method and get to experience the joy of discovery. Her goal is that all of her students, whether STEM majors or not, leave her class with a greater appreciation of the living world around them. She strives to incorporate news of recent scientific discoveries into the class lecture and discussion. She stresses the importance of understanding the basics of biological systems, and how that knowledge can be applied in fields such as medicine, the environment, and politics.