← News & Blog · 2026 ·
Congratulations to Dr. Filipa Godoy-Vitorino, recipient of the 2027 ASM Award for Graduate Education
RIPLRT collaborator Dr. Filipa Godoy-Vitorino, Professor and Chair of Microbiology and Immunology at the UPR Medical Sciences Campus, will receive the American Society for Microbiology's 2027 Award for Graduate Education.
The RIPLRT Institute congratulates our collaborator Dr. Filipa Godoy-Vitorino, Professor and Chair of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Puerto Rico School of Medicine, Medical Sciences Campus, on being selected to receive the 2027 ASM Award for Graduate Education from the American Society for Microbiology (ASM).
The award recognizes general excellence in microbiology education, and honors Dr. Godoy-Vitorino's contributions to graduate training and her dedication to mentoring the next generation of scientists. She will be formally recognized at ASM Microbe 2027 in Chicago, Illinois.
A microbial ecologist trained at the University of Porto, UPR Río Piedras, and the U.S. DOE Joint Genome Institute, Dr. Godoy-Vitorino leads the UPR Microbiome Lab and directs the NIH-funded Puerto Rico Center for Microbiome Sciences, a COBRE center that positions Puerto Rico as a regional hub for microbiome research. Her group pioneered metagenomic and bioinformatic approaches to the human microbiome in Puerto Rico, including microbial biomarkers of cervicovaginal and oral HPV infection in Hispanic women, and she has mentored more than 100 trainees. She has served as faculty mentor of Graduate Women in Science – Puerto Rico and as president of the AAAS Caribbean Division, and in 2025 she received the Arturo Carrión Memorial Lecture Award from the Puerto Rico Society of Microbiologists.
Dr. Godoy-Vitorino has been a long-standing partner of the Institute. She is a co-author on our post-Hurricane María studies of indoor fungal exposure, immune activation, and Aspergillus species in water-damaged homes in Puerto Rico, and her lab's expertise in microbial ecology and multi-omics underpins our shared work on the microbiome and respiratory health. Her example of rigorous science paired with inclusive mentoring is exactly the model the RIPLRT aspires to.
¡Felicidades, Filipa!
Adapted from the announcement by the UPR School of Medicine.