Soon-to-be Doctor Alonso Torres, Jr. knows the value of community.
His route to a PhD in bioengineering has been non-traditional, starting out in California’s Central Valley, then service in the military, marriage and children, community college, an undergraduate degree at UC Merced, and two years working as a research engineer at UCSF before joining our joint UC Berkeley – UC San Francisco Graduate Program in Bioengineering. He was named a Pat Tillman Scholar in 2021, a fellowship for veterans pursuing service through higher education, and received the 2026 UCSF Dean’s Award for Excellence in Mentoring.
“My military service, especially tours in Iraq, changed my perspective of what I wanted to do in life. I didn’t go straight through to school, I had to include other experiences in my life to develop my passion for what I wanted to do with my education,” said Alonso.
Torres works with Professor Shuvo Roy at UCSF on The Kidney Project, a long-term effort to create a small, surgically implanted, and free-standing bioartificial kidney. They are currently working on silicon nanopore membrane technology to re-create the filtering functions of the kidney, offering a new option for renal failure patients beyond dialysis and donor transplants.
After completing his dissertation this year he will be looking for a postdoctoral position, and hopes to remain working in the tissue engineering and biomaterials field. He hopes to become a professor and continue mentoring young scientists.
“My path has given me the opportunity to use what I’ve learned – in my military life, my adolescence, and academia – to teach, mentor, and help other future scientists move forward and pursue their passion.”
Torres says that realizing the importance of cooperation has been fundamental to his success.
“You could do things by yourself, but I find it better and more important to do them as a community. If you have different perspectives and approaches toward a problem you’re more likely to solve it than just using your own perspective. Trusting in others is probably one of the most critical things that I’ve learned as a soldier that has carried over to being a biomedical researcher.”
He is also a coach and board member of a local kid’s soccer club, and is well known for modeling that it is possible to pursue scientific excellence while living a full and balanced life. In addition to teaching, mentoring, and research, Torres intends to continue developing community wherever he goes.
“From the colleagues who clean the laboratories to the admin people that run the program to the scientists, we all work together. We all have a piece of the pie, so it’s a collaborative effort to accomplish all the research that’s being done within UC Berkeley and UCSF.”