Why Fundamental Science Is the Seed of Every Breakthrough
Prioritizing quick wins is quietly starving the science that makes real innovation possible.
María Rodríguez Martínez
María Rodríguez Martínez is a tenured Associate Professor in the Department of Biomedical Informatics & Data Science at Yale School of Medicine and a Public Voices Fellow with The OpEd Project in partnership with Yale University. Her lab develops interpretable AI models to investigate immune receptors and design novel cancer immunotherapies. Before joining Yale in 2024, she led the Computational Systems Biology group at IBM Research Europe, directing large-scale efforts in cancer personalized medicine. Trained originally as an astrophysicist, she transitioned to computational biology through postdoctoral work at the Weizmann Institute (Israel) and Columbia University (US). She has authored more than 100 peer‑reviewed publications and mentored over 50 trainees through competitively funded research programs. Her scientific journey spans Spain, France, the UK, Israel, Switzerland, and the US, bridging academia and industry across highly interdisciplinary domains.