Born June 23, 1926, in Ortiz, Colorado, Dr. Alonzo Cristoval Atencio would become known as the “Godfather of minority medical education.” He received his PhD (1964) in Biochemistry from the University of Colorado Boulder. His dissertation was titled “Metabolism and Distribution of Fibrinogen in Young and Older Male Rabbits”and focused on factor XIII fibrinogen in male rabbits. He continued this work during his postdoc at Northwestern University. He would join the University of New Mexico’s School of Medicine in 1970 where he would become Assistant Dean for Student Affairs and Director of Minority Programs.
He saw a need for increasing recruitment and retention of diverse scholars. Subsequently, he received a Macy Foundation grant to recruit and help high school students from minority backgrounds enter medical school. He decided to not just focus on medical school, but also college recruitment in general. He identified high school students across the state, helped them apply for scholarship funding, and continued to mentor them to help them enter medical school.
This planted a seed in Alonzo’s mind for his lifelong work, and in 1973 he received funds from the NIH to sponsor a meeting of all the Chicano and Native American Scientists that he knew in Albuquerque. He wanted the group to address the issues of a lack of representation in academia and government. This would mark the founding of the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Sciences (SACNAS) where he assumed the role of founding president. SACNAS now offers mentorship, programming, leadership, community, and support to diverse scholars from all backgrounds.
References:
- https://www.newspapers.com/article/albuquerque-journal-obituary-for-a-tenci/38326402/
- https://scholar.colorado.edu/concern/graduate_thesis_or_dissertations/df65v8156
- https://hsc.unm.edu/medicine/alumni-giving/memorials/remembrances/memorialprofiles/atencio.html
- https://www.sacnas.org/history-of-sacnas
