Eduard De La Cruz Burelo (This is how I look)
 

It is difficult to self-describe how you are. So I will not do it. I just will say a little bit about me.

I was born in 1977 in a small village in the south of Mexico, in the state of Tabasco. My parents were farmers at that moment and somehow they still are. First of six children, five still giving problems in this world. With an excellent record on my studies, and after trying with success different fields in my bachelor studies, I decided to be physicist because it was one of the less expensive careers in the UJAT (Universidad Juarez Autonoma de Tabasco), the only University in the state of Tabasco (I think now there are couple of more univ.).  I just needed my brain, some books from the library and the money to pay the bus -a little bit expensive since the nearest campus of the UJAT was 1:00 hour by bus from my home-. Working since I was 8 years old in many different jobs, my only chance was to do something that nobody else could do, or at least just few can do it, so physics looked to be that profession that I was looking for, until I knew that nobody wanted to hire physicists in Tabasco, but it was too late, I was almost finishing my degree. After two years in my studies in the UJAT, I got a small -but very important for me- scholarship from TELMEX. Four months before the end of my last semester in the UJAT, I moved to Mexico City looking for a place in the PhD Physics program of the well-known and respected (at least in Mexico) Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Avanzados del IPN (CINVESTAV). I got a place and with that a scholarship from the Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnologia (Conacyt). I also kept for a couple of years more my TELMEX's scholarship. During my first semester in Cinvestav, I also worked on my thesis to obtain my degree on physics from the UJAT. I graduated on February of 2001. I got married after my first year in the PhD, with a woman that has been since my studies in the UJAT the wall behind me. I believed when I got married that somehow it was a payment for all things that who is now my wife had to pass as my girlfriend, however, I was totally wrong, it was a gift that I received from heaven after working hard for many years. After my second year in CINVESTAV, I moved to Fermilab in US. I worked in the D0 experiment for more than three years. I got my Master and PhD. degrees with my work there. But also good friends, and two beautiful daughters. In the paper -since it is not really important to get jobs-, I was the first of my generation in Cinvestav to graduate, and also the best student of my generation (initially 25) - best grade notes- . Three weeks after graduated I moved to CERN in Switzerland/France to work in the ATLAS experiment with the University of Michigan. I am on that now. My first daughter and my wife speak more French than me, but I think everything is going fine.

No matter how I began on this, I like what I do. I hope sometime in the future to return to the UJAT where all this adventure on physics started. Teach there maybe, or just to help some good student to have the change to go out of the banana or cacao plantations, and see the beautiful world of science and good friends of all around the world.

From my parents:

• If you do not find a job, then make it.
• If you need a skill that you do not have, then develop it.
• If you have a job, then work hard everyday.
• If you believe you are going to fall down in your live, we are always here in what is going to be always your home.

From the life:

• Make plans, but be prepared for a plan B, C, etc., or to re-plan everything.
• If you have problems, work hard to solve them, and only after working hard for many days and in desperate cases ask to God for help, ask for a hint, not for a solution.
• Enjoy your life since it is only one chance.
• Do not complicate your life, it is enough complicate by itself.

Update (August 2007) :

Things going well, still  without speaking French, but I discovered a particle (UM press release , Fermilab press release).

--- Eduard