Audrey Yñigez-Gutierrez is originally from Galveston, Texas. She graduated with her Bachelor of Science in Chemistry from the University of San Antonio with a minor in Biology. Audrey then moved to Nashville, Tennessee to complete a doctorate in Chemistry from Vanderbilt University. Her graduate work with Professor Brian Bachmann focused on elucidating the biosynthetic pathway of the potent bacterial natural product everninomicin. During her graduate work, she was awarded a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship to support her work on everninomicin. Audrey was an active member of the Chemical Biology Association of Students (CBAS) at Vanderbilt and served as a board member and president.

Audrey is currently a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Wisconsin – Madison in the laboratory of Professor Brian Pfleger. Her work is focused on developing the cyanobacteria Synechococcus sp. strain PCC 7002 as a heterologous host for the production and biosynthetic studies of fatty acid-containing secondary metabolites. She is currently supported by an NIH NIGMS Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award Postdoctoral Fellowship (F32). During her time at UW-Madison, Audrey has continued to mentor and teach junior researchers. She served as a co-mentor for two summer National Science Foundation (NSF) Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) students in the Pfleger laboratory. She also took part as a co-mentor for two teachers through the NSF Research Experiences for Teachers (RET) program. Both programs offered Audrey the opportunity to mentor students and teachers with less traditional research experience. In particular, the RET program offered unique challenges and opportunities to work with K-12 educators to develop new science learning activities to take back to their classrooms based on university-level research. As a result of this project, a cyanobacteria module was developed for middle school students focused on using the scientific method to understand the growing conditions of cyanobacteria in local lakes. Together these mentoring opportunities have helped Audrey to develop her science communication and education skills.