DIANA MARCELA BOLAÑOS RODRÍGUEZ

Diana Marcela Bolaños Rodríguez is a marine biologist from Colombia, who has studied and
classified various types of platyhelminths. She was a recipient of the L'Oréal-UNESCO Fellowship
for Women in Science in 2010, was selected as Colombian biologist of the year in 2012, and in
2013 was named by the BBC as one of the top ten women in science in Latin America.

BIOGRAPHY

Diana Marcela Bolaños Rodríguez was born in 1981 in Bogotá, Colombia, and grew up there. At the
age of 19 she enrolled in the Universidad Jorge Tadeo Lozano at the campus in Santa Marta on
the Caribbean side of Colombia. After completing her undergraduate work with a thesis
on flatworms, in 2003, Bolaños continued her education at the University of New
Hampshire (UNH) in the United States. She received her PhD in zoology from UNH in Durham, New
Hampshire, in 2008 with an Award for Excellence in Research from the Department of
Zoology. Her research focused on polyclad flatworms, a marine worm which is unique in its ability
to generate tissue through stem cells.

She married an American, Joseph Dunn, whom she had met while in New Hampshire, and in 2008
returned to Colombia to continue her research, completing a database of flatworm species and
their taxonomic groups. Bolaños also took a teaching post as a visiting professor for the University
of the Andes (Uniandes). In 2010, she was awarded a L'Oréal-UNESCO Fellowship for Women in
Science and she used the award to complete her postdoctoral research at Uniandes. Bolaños then
took a post as an assistant professor in the Biology Program at the Universidad de Cartagena. In
2012 she was named Colombian biologist of the year and in 2013 was named one of the top ten
women scientists in Latin America by the BBC. Despite the difficulties of finding funding for
research, Bolaños has remained in Colombia, in part to inspire others' interests in science and in
part to fill the gap because so many post-graduates from Colombia remain part of the diaspora.
She has continued her research and is working on comparisons between polyclads, planarians and
other types of platyhelminths and their abilities to regenerate. In addition, she has published
numerous articles in international, peer-reviewed journals such as Evolution & Development,
the Journal of Natural History and Zootaxa in the areas of evolution and biological systematics, as
well as continuing her education at courses such as the Society for Developmental Biology short
course held in Montevideo, Uruguay.

Why she is the Colombian personality of the year?

she is a role model because she shows that women can shine in science.She is a very intelligent
woman and has had great discoveries.

Selected works:

* Taxonomía y anotaciones ecológicas de los gusanos planos marinos de vida libre.

* "A new acotylean flatworm, Armatoplana colombiana sp. nov. (Platyhelminthes: Polycladida:
Stylochoplanidae) from the Caribbean coast of Colombia, South America"
* A checklist of polyclad flatworms (Platyhelminthes: Polycladida) from the Caribbean coast of
Colombia, South America"

* "First description of deep-sea polyclad flatworms from the North Pacific: Anocellidus n. gen.
profundus n. sp. (Anocellidae, n. fam.) and Oligocladus voightae n. sp. (Euryleptidae)"

For more information, visit, taken from:

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diana_Marcela_Bola%C3%B1os