Enrique De La Cruz

Enrique De La Cruz is a Cuban-American researcher and educator, known for his research in biochemistry regarding the cytoskeleton of cells.

Early life and education
De La Cruz's parents came from Cuba, and relocated to Kearny, New Jersey. When he was 16, De La Cruz worked in a lab at Hoffman-La Roche in New Jersey for a work study program. He was the only one from his high school to have that opportunity. While at Rutgers University-Newark, De la Cruz was a part of the Minority Biomedical Research Support program, commonly abbreviated to "MBRS", a program that, as the name would suggest, provided support to Minority students in Biomedical fields.

De La Cruz earned his B.A. in biology from Rutgers University-Newark in 1991. He earned his doctoral degree in cell biology through the Biochemistry, Cell and Molecular Biology program at Johns Hopkins University in 1997.

Career
De La Cruz joined Yale University's faculty as professor of molecular biophysics and biochemistry. De La Cruz was appointed head of Branford College in 2017. He was appointed chair of the Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale in July 2020.

In addition to his faculty position, De La Cruz is also an associate editor for the Journal of Biological Chemistry of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

Contributions
Enrique De La Cruz has contributed to over 92 peer reviewed studies for various journals and publications. His most recent studies have been over the movement of Actin filaments. In 2018, he received the Emily Gray Award in Education from the Biophysical Society. Cell Mentor included De La Cruz as part of their 100 most inspiring Hispanic/Latinx scientists in 2020. In 2022, De La Cruz was elected to the American Association for the Advancement of Science.