Meet the Team

Dr. Lydia M. Contreras is a Paul D. and Betty Robertson Meek Centennial Professor in Chemical Engineering at UT Austin and is a member of the Institute of Cell and Molecular Biology. 

Dr. Contreras obtained a B.S.E. in Chemical Engineering from Princeton University in 2003, where she graduated Cum Laude. She completed her Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Cornell University in 2008, focusing on engineering bacterial cells for improved production of therapeutic proteins. As a postdoctoral associate at the Wadsworth Center, she focused on understanding mechanisms of infection in pathogenic bacteria. 

She began her career at The University of Texas at Austin in 2011, where she leads a research team focused on RNA biochemistry to study gene regulation mechanisms associated with stress-responses for applications in health and biotechnology. She has received numerous national academic, teaching and service awards for her work in Engineering. From 2022-2024 Lydia served in the Executive Vice President and Provost Office at UT Austin as Vice Provost under faculty affairs.

Dr. Del Watson has spent the last 25 years in leadership roles in higher education. She began her career in higher education in 1999 as Director of Human Resources at Huston-Tillotson University. In 2006, she was appointed Director of HR Strategy at the McCombs School of Business at UT Austin. She served in the Executive Vice President and Provost Office from 2014-2023, before assuming the position of Director of Postdoctoral Affairs in the Graduate School in January 2024. 

Dr. Watson holds a BA in Economics, an MA in Human Dimensions of Organizations and the Ph.D. in Higher Education Leadership from The University of Texas at Austin, and an MBA from St. Edward’s University, Austin, Texas. A military veteran, Del served in the US Air Force where she achieved the rank of Captain.