Constanza Cortes, B.Sc., Ph.D., received her Ph.D. in molecular and cellular physiology from the University of Chicago. She was a postdoctoral researcher in the University of California San Diego’s Department of Pediatrics. In 2019, Dr. Cortes moved to the University of Alabama at Birmingham's School of Medicine as an assistant professor. In 2023, she moved to the Leonard Davis School of Gerontology at the University of Southern California. She is active in mentoring junior investigators, specially focusing on the retention of diverse scientists across the pipeline. Dr. Cortes’s research focuses on the benefits of exercise on the aging brain, intersecting the fields of geroscience, neuroscience, and exercise medicine, with the ultimate goal of developing exercise-like interventions to target Alzheimer’s disease.