Millennium Magazine_2ndEd

A Marquis Who's Who Magazine 145 M inerva A.F. Garcia always loved helping people heal. As the ninth of 10 siblings, she always felt the need to strive and make a better life for herself and her family. She learned to write and master the English language, serving as a medical interpreter for her ill mother, father and siblings and in hospital positions. Since then, she has felt it is her duty to be an advocate, not MINERVA A.F. GARCIA ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR OF MICROBIOLOGY, JACOBI MEDICAL CENTER Staten Island, NY only for her own family, but also for the less fortunate. Ms. Garcia entered the medical field at age 12 as a candy striper in her community hospital in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. She continued to follow her dreams, earning a BS in Biology from St. Francis College and MS in Medical Microbiology from LIU. She is the Associate Director of Microbiology at Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx, handling the daily operations and functionality of the Microbiology Department. Aside from her medical career, Ms. Garcia is an accomplished writer. Her work has appeared in newspapers, magazines and radio stations, and in poetry anthologies. She is a member of the American Society for Microbiology and CLMA and had major scientific abstracts accepted and published by CLMA. Ms. Garcia will be a guest speaker at the Seven th International Conference and Exhibition on Bacteriology & Antibiotics in Vancouver in April 2019 on “Difficulties Encountered in the Isolation of S. moniliformis, a GV-PBdCurvB from Clinical Blood Culture sample in aerobic bottle.” Her collection of poems, “The Journey of a Rainbow… My Poetic Journal Mind Views,” was published in March 2019. Ms. Garcia’s love for Anaerobic Bacteriology and interest are Pathogenicity of M. mulieris ultrastructure (fimbriae/flagella) mechanism for attachment in the clue cells involving pregnant women and biofilms as future. This interest has been present since 1984 while searching for a paper at Columbia University, Biology of Nerve Cells, and are reasons for striving in her career and taking her paths in microbiology. She credits her mentors, Ellen Jo Baron and Scott Feingold, two inspiring microbiologists she met at North Shore University Medical Center in 1986 when she entered the field.