Dr. Cartagena-Rivera received a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Puerto Rico and his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Purdue University. He completed a Post-Doctoral IRTA Fellowship in the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders at the National Institutes of Health. He is now an Earl Stadtman (Tenure-Track) Investigator and chief of the Section on Mechanobiology at the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, where his laboratory research focuses on understanding the cellular and tissue molecular-mechanical regulation and development of advanced Atomic Force Microscopy tools for cancer and hearing mechanobiology. In 2019 he received the prestigious NIH Distinguished Scholars Program award.