Laura Escobar is a second‑year undergraduate student from Del Rio, Texas, studying Biomedical Engineering with a minor in Physics at UT San Antonio. An NIH‑ESTEEMED scholar, she joined the MDI lab as a freshman in Fall 2024 and now contributes to the Mayer‑Hood collaboration, focusing on the synthesis of gold nanorods for applications to the FMD project. Since beginning her research, Laura has presented at several local conferences and is slated to showcase her work at the UT San Antonio Biophysics Symposium 2025 and ABRCMS 2025. She plans to pursue a PhD after graduation, aiming to continue research at the intersection of medical physics and biomedical engineering. Outside of academia, Laura enjoys video gaming, coding, and being a devoted cat mom.