Keywords: Immunology, Comparative Immunology, evolution, Veterinary Immunology, teleost fish, mucosal immunity, nasal immunity, olfaction, CNS, microbiota, neuroimmunology, nasal vaccines

Irene Salinas, Ph.D. (she/her/hers)

Associate Professor at The University of New Mexico

Irene Salinas is an Associate Professor at the Biology Department, University of New Mexico. Her laboratory investigates mucosal immunity and neuroimmune communication in non-traditional research models such as teleost fish and lungfish. She is passionate about evolutionary immunology and the diversity of immune systems that can be found in different organisms. She is an advocate for Women in STEM and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in academia.

Irene received her B.S at the University of Alicante, Spain. She was a British Council Scholar at the University of Plymouth, UK where she obtained her Masters in Applied Fish Biology. She received her PhD in Cell and Molecular Biology at the University of Murcia, Spain. Her PhD focused on teleost gut immunity and probiotics. She then moved to the University of Pennsylvania, USA, for her first postdoctoral position at the laboratory of JO. Sunyer. Her worked identified an ancient immunoglobulin, IgT, that is specialized in mucosal immunity. Irene moved to Wellington, New Zealand for a second postdoctoral period where she investigated skin infections caused by ciliated parasites in marine fish. In 2011, Irene opened her own laboratory at the Center for Theoretical and Evolutionary Immunology (CETI) within the Department of Biology at the University of New Mexico. She is currently the Associate Chair and a Regents Lecturer. Since then, the Salinas laboratory has made seminal contributions to the fields of nasal immunity, skin immunity and gut immunity in fish. Her most recent interests have unveiled unique neuroimmune interactions in the olfactory-CNS axis in response to nasal viral infection. 

In her personal life, Irene is a mother of two (1 and 4-year-old), an avid outdoors enthusiast and loves cooking food from all over the world. She is very passionate about training women and URMs and promoting diversity in academia via social media.