Ana Maria Porras Corredor

Ana Maria Porras Corredor is an American biomedical engineer who is assistant professor of biomedical engineering at the University of Florida and an IF/THEN Ambassador She is known for creating crochet versions of micro-organisms as a way of connecting with a wider audience, especially children in her home country of Colombia.

A 3-D printed statue of Porras holding several of her crochet creations was included in the IF/THEN exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. in March 2022. She was named a UF International Center Global Fellow in 2021, a Cornell Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow, 2019–2022 and an American Heart Association Predoctoral Fellow, 2015–2016. She co-founded the LatinX in Biomedical Engineering (LatinXinBME) community with Brian Aguado, a professor of bioengineering at the University of California San Diego.

Early life and education Porras was born in Colombia, and her parents were engineering professors. Porras earned a Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Engineering from University of Texas in 2011, a Masters of Science in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2013 and a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2016.