Christian Jordan Paz De Vera, M.S., is currently a research associate working on novel approaches to treat empyema and retained hemothorax. Coming from the Philippines, he migrated to the United States of America as a permanent resident and entered the University of Texas at Tyler in 2014. He received his bachelor's degree in biology with a minor in biochemistry in May 2018. In August of the same year, he entered the Biotechnology graduate program at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Tyler where he performed his thesis work under the supervision of Galina Florova PhD Christian received his Master of Science in Biotechnology degree in June 2020. He continued his work focusing on the development of pleural disease models that provide insight into human pleural disease pathogenesis and clinical management.