By Gwen Frost
Name: Alejandro Acevedo-Gutierrez
Position: Professor in the Department of Biology
Education background:
Postgraduate Researcher, University of California Santa Cruz 1998-2001.
Ph.D., Wildlife & Fisheries Sciences, Texas A&M University 1997.
Biól. Mar., Universidad Autónoma de Baja California Sur, Mexico. (B.Sc. Mar. Biol.) 1989
Hometown: Mexico City, Mexico
Claim to fame: Oscar Nomination, which led to the Key to the City of Tampa, because of being the 2001 Hispanic Scientist of the Year. Even now, reached out to by casting agency for a marine biology film.
QUESTIONS:
- What did you want to be when you grew up (as a kid)?
A scientist. Well even as a kid, I wanted to study animals.
- What would you sing at a karaoke night?
Luna Tucumana. A song from Argentina which I really love, it’s just about the moon.
- What are you reading right now/most recently? What’s it about?
I like detective novels, so the one from the movie the Snowman. That book, it’s a Norwegian writer. It was okay, I mean I love detective novels, but the endings sometimes they bug me. I love the ones from other places because it’s just good to learn a little bit about other places.
- Aside from necessities, what are three things you could not go a day without?
You know, I lived in a tropical island in Costa Rica for my PhD without anything, and there I learned that you know, I can be without a lot of crap that I used to think I needed. So, if I did that again now, what would really be hard is just them, my family.
- What’s the craziest thing you’ve done in the name of love?
I’ve done a lot of stupid things, sometimes in the name of love sometimes in the name of something else… uh, one thing I proposed to my wife in the uh this is kind of embarrassing… in the hallway outside the bathroom in our house, just because I couldn’t contain myself and wait until the restaurant I was just so excited So that was probably one of the super crazy things but at least it’s memorable, that’s for sure. We definitely walk by that place where I proposed every day.
- What advice would you have given your college-undergrad-self?
Don’t study Orcas in La Paz. That is practice-specific advice. Because otherwise you are going to spend a year doing nothing. But, don’t be too intellectually arrogant or defensive with professors (which I was) and don’t be too annoying with classmates (which I was).
- What is your favorite restaurant-prepared breakfast dish?
I just had it for my birthday and my wife made it. Harris street makes a good one, the benedict eggs with smoked salmon.