The ecosystem.
I serve to keep cultivating the structures that made my own growth possible, and to build paths the next generation can use to go further than we did.
Why I serve
Institutions and communities are ecosystems, and they do not maintain themselves. Service stopped being abstract for me once I understood what Uniandes had given me. I think it is the best university in the country, and that judgment carries an obligation, though obligation is not quite the right word.
Healthy ecosystems do not live on passive gratitude; they live on participation. Every committee, every manuscript I review, every conversation with a school student who is deciding whether engineering is for them is an investment in a system larger than me. What matters is not the recognition. What matters is that the ecosystem stays alive.
When I co-founded the Augmented Intelligence initiative, I was not betting on a fad. Generative AI was going to change how engineers are trained whether we planned for it or not, and I preferred that we change our methods on purpose rather than watch them erode by accident. That is how I read service in general: notice where a new capability meets a real need of the institution, and build the bridge.
The direction of the GDPP, the seats on editorial boards, the visits to schools: these are different networks in which I can be a connecting node. A review helps another researcher sharpen an argument. A school visit opens possibilities a student had not allowed themselves to imagine. Committee work, slow as it is, is how an institution keeps adapting to generations it has not met yet.
What sustains me has two layers. The first is direct: I have something to give, ideas, creativity, honesty and a real concern for whether students are doing well. The second takes longer to put into words. Service has effects that travel further than the act itself. The student I advise today will be a node in tomorrow’s network. The program I build now may serve students I will never meet.
Stoic practice taught me to put my attention on what I can actually move, and service is the form that practice takes inside an institution. Individual achievement has a ceiling; caring for the ecosystem does not. Real ecosystems last through diversity, adaptation and interconnection, and service is my way of helping ours keep all three: widening who gets in, pushing initiatives that answer real change, and weaving the connections between academia, industry and society that make any of this last.
Brayan Rodríguez
Assistant Professor at Pontificia Universidad Javeriana
Julian Daniel Torres Vanegas
Assistant Professor at Universidad EAN
Cristian F. Rodríguez
Instructor Professor at Universidad de los Andes
Tatiana Carolina Beltrán González
Teacher at Liceo Boston
Graduates of the group who now teach.
All the graduatesWhere the service happens
- Augmented Intelligence UniandesCo-founder and co-leader of the School of Engineering initiative that, from June 2024 to 2026, brought generative AI into its courses and rethought how they are taught.
- Committees and leadershipElected and appointed roles, from the Council of the School of Engineering and its Research Ethics Committee to the direction of the GDPP and the Research Committee of AIGEN.
- Evaluation of others’ workProposals for national and university calls, the academic records of professors at other universities, and theses as an external examiner.
- Editorial boards and peer reviewSeats on the editorial boards of Education for Chemical Engineers, Scientific Reports and Discover Biotechnology, and peer review for journals in engineering, the life sciences and education research.
- Edited books and guest editorshipsBooks edited for Elsevier, CRC Press and IntechOpen, and special issues curated as guest editor for journals published by Elsevier, the Royal Society of Chemistry, Frontiers and MDPI.
- Outreach and scoutingColumns and interviews in the press, an episode of the documentary series Visionarios, talks for the sectors we work with, and school visits, fairs and workshops in our labs for prospective students.