Dr. Cardona was born in Colombia and received her undergraduate degree in 1996 from the University of Antioquia, with a research thesis developed at the Corporacion para Investigaciones Biologicas, in Medellin (Colombia). She then moved to the United States and received her Ph.D degree with a concentration in Microbiology and Immunology from the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio in 2002. Dr. Cardona completed her post-postdoctoral training at the Cleveland Clinic in the Department of Neurosciences at the Lerner Research Institute. During her trajectory at the Cleveland Clinic she received a post-doctoral fellowship from the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and then she became a Research Associate and also held a Project Staff Position. In 2009 she joined The University of Texas at San Antonio, where she is currently an Assistant Professor, a faculty of the Department of Biology and a member of the South Texas Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases.

Dr. Cardona’s passion for teaching and research became recognized early in her career; she received the Barbara Stanford memorial teaching award at the UTHSCSA and the F. Merlin Bumpus Junior Investigator Award for excellence in basic science research at the Cleveland Clinic. Community Service is also an integral part of Dr. Cardona’s life at an institutional, national and international level. She actively volunteers with her expertise as a judge in various research conferences and fairs, including Intel, Exxon Mobil Texas Science and Engineering, John Jay High School Science and Engineering Academy. She participates as leader in education and research in workshops to reach the youth and she contributes her time as a reviewer for multiple scientific journals and funding agencies. Currently she is actively involved with undergraduate education and training graduate and undergraduate students in biomedical research. Dr. Cardona’s research laboratory is focused in neuroinflammation and she is the principal investigator in three research projects aimed to understand the damage that occurs to the brain during chronic diseases such as Multiple Sclerosis and diabetes. Her research is funded by the National Institutes of Health, the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and the San Antonio Area Foundation. She is author of over 25 scientific contributions and member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Association of Immunologist and the American Society for Neurochemistry.