Karlen Enid Correa Vélez, a postdoctoral research fellow in the van Kessel Lab in the Department of Biology at Indiana University Bloomington, was awarded the Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award Individual Postdoctoral Fellowship (F32) from the National Institutes of Health.
The purpose of the fellowship is to enhance the research training of promising postdoctoral candidates who have the potential to become productive, independent investigators in scientific health-related research fields relevant to the missions of the participating NIH Institutes and Centers. Correa Vélez will receive three years of support for her postdoctoral research and training.
Correa Vélez’s research focuses on Vibrio interspecies interactions and host–pathogen dynamics, with an emphasis on understanding how climate-driven environmental changes shape Vibrio adaptation, colonization, and persistence using a Vibrio-Oyster model.
In addition to the postdoctoral fellowship, Correa Vélez was recently selected for the 2026 American Society for Microbiology Career Development Grant for Postdoctoral Women.
Before joining IU, Correa Vélez earned her Ph.D. from the University of South Carolina in the Norman Microbial Ecology Lab, where she studied how socio-ecological factors and climate change influence non-cholera Vibrio species. However, she developed her passion for Vibrio and the environment during her master’s studies at the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez, where she first studied Vibrio and oysters.
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