Dr. Aguilar-Carreno (publication name Hector C. Aguilar) is a Professor of Virology in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Cornell University. He received a B.S. degree in Biochemical Engineering from Instituto Tecnologico de Tepic, Mexico before immigrating to the USA. He obtained a M.S. degree in Biology from California State University, Los Angeles, and a PhD degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of Southern California, where he was introduced to viruses. He received post-doctoral training in Virology at the University of California, Los Angeles, under the mentoring of Dr. Benhur Lee, and then became an Assistant Professor at the Paul G. Allen School for Global Animal Health at Washington State University (WSU). At UCLA he pioneered the identification of cell receptors for Nipah virus (NiV) and Hendra virus (HeV) and began to establish important tools to study NiV and HeV entry into mammalian host cells, as well as viral assembly/exit from infected cells. He is known for adopting technologies previously foreign to the field of Virology to the study of enveloped viruses, including Raman Spectroscopy, Super-Resolution Microscopy, and Flow Virometry. His studies on viral glycoproteins and their roles in host cell entry and viral assembly inform novel ways to develop vaccines and antivirals. Dr. Aguilar-Carreno has served in many important roles, including: Director of Graduate Studies of the WSU Immunology and Infectious Diseases PhD program; member of the WSU CVM Research Council; member of the WSU Internal Governance Board for NIH T32 post-doctoral program; member of the American Society for Virology (ASV) Education Committee; Ad-hoc member of >20 NIH study sections; Standing Member of the NIH MCV study section; Chair of the American Society of Microbiology Committee for Minority Education; Chair of the American Society of Virology Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion committee; Chair of the Cornell CVM Diversity Committee; member of the Cornell CVM Research Council; member of the ASM and the Cornell presidential postdoctoral fellowship committee; member of various PhD Admissions committees, Director of the Cornell Program for Achieving Career Excellence, Chair of 17 PhD student thesis committees; member of >40 PhD student committees; direct mentor of >40 undergraduate students doing research. He is a former President of the American Society for Virology, and the current Chair of the Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics at UCLA.