Dr. Eloy Rodriguez
James A. Perkins Endowed Professor
Cornell University
Dr. Eloy Rodriguez is a Chicano (Mexican American) that was born in South Texas and grew up with 60+ cousins, -a majority of which received undergraduate degrees, and 13 of his relatives have received Masters or Ph.D. degrees. Dr. Rodriguez and some of his cousins were also Texas migrant farm workers picking fruits and cucumbers around Dowagiac, Saginaw and Benton Harbor in Michigan.
Dr. Rodriguez received his Ph.D. at the University of Texas, Austin and was a Medical postdoctoral fellow at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver. He was a full professor at the University of California, Irvine for 18 years and was recruited by Cornell University and has been the James A. Perkins endowed professor for 14 years. He is a Biological and Ecological Chemist and Natural Medicines Biochemist. He has published over 163 research publications, two books and presented over 500 invited lectures throughout the world. He has received various awards from the AAAS, Silver Medal from the Medicinal Plant Society of Mexico, NSF Educational Award and funding from the NSF, the NIH, Hughes Medical Institute and various other private foundations.
He research focuses on the genesis, discovery and application of natural organic medicines for breast and pancreatic cancer and diabetes type 2. He also studies health disparities in poor Appalachian whites, Chicano/a, African Americans and American Indians. Dr. Rodriguez also created the KIDS program (Kids Investigating and Discovering Science) for k-8 minority children and has also established various programs at UCI and Cornell that benefit undergraduate students (minority and majority). He has presented hundreds of lectures to k-6 and high school students in the US, Caribbean and Mexico. Dr. Rodriguez is married to Professor Helena Maria Viramontes, a world-renown fiction writer and professor at Cornell University. Helena was born in East Los Angeles, California. They have two children, Eloy Francisco is pursuing a Ph.D. degree at Princeton, and Pilar Viramontes is studying at SUNY Purchase, New York.