David Portillo

David Portillo was born and raised in the lower valley of El Paso, Texas. In 2018, he obtained his B.S. degree in Chemistry from The University of Texas at Austin. During his undergraduate studies, David participated in UT Austin’s Freshman Research Initiative (FRI) Program, working under Dr. Eric V. Anslyn in the Supramolecular Sensors research stream. His work consisted of developing new techniques in differential sensing for discrimination of wine and cachaça. In late 2018, having been accepted to UT Austin’s doctoral program, David joined the research group of Professor Kami Hull, who recently relocated to UT Austin from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, focusing on the topics of ligand design for metal-catalyzed reactions. Outside of the lab, David enjoys playing video games on Xbox One such as Rainbow Six Siege, playing guitar and bass in the rock and metal genre, and binge-watching series on Netflix, Hulu, and VRV.

Fellowship: Gates Millennium Scholarship Program awarded 2014