by: Kendra J. Royston
“Helping people had always been my passion.”
Passion, drive, determination, kindness, and philanthropy. After my interview with Dr. Doris Espiritu of Wright College, it was evident that these 5 words would be appropriate descriptors to help us gain perspective into her world view. Influenced by her father’s emphasis on education and higher learning, she embraced her academic journey early.
As a minority woman in STEM Dr. Espiritu understands the need for representation in the field. Serving as an example and role model, she is capable of helping influence and impact other women who are akin to herself. She is extremely passionate about STEM diversity and teaching, and it is safe to assume that she utilizes her platform as a city college professor to inspire and cultivate young minds.
Dr. Espiritu’s father made her promise to “never give up” on her education, and it was that promise that encouraged her to persevere through poverty. Now, she honors her father’s memory by passing the lessons she’s learned from him on to her students and those who look up to her.
Initially motivated by money, Dr. Espiritu pursued her education in chemistry. After receiving her Master’s degree from the University of the Philippines she worked in industry for a while to help provide for her family. Despite achieving monetary success, Doris felt that “something was missing” and decided to move to the US to pursue her PhD in Physiology and Biophysics with hopes of designing drugs to help people. Her dissertation was centered on kidney physiology and her postdoc work focused on understanding endocrinology with relation to obesity.
It was when Dr. Espiritu began working with students that she felt she had truly found her passion. As an instructor at Wright, the joy she received in the classroom resulted in her continuing her career there. Now, as the Director of the Engineering program, and Professor of Chemistry at Wilbur Wright, Dr. Espiritu’s gifts and passions have made room for her. She has received numerous accolades, established partnerships with Princeton University and the Czech Academy of Sciences, Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign, and Armour College of Engineering, IIT and has even secured a $1.43M National Science Foundation for the “Building Bridges into Engineering and Computer Science” program at the college.
When she’s not teaching and utilizing her research in data mining and computational chemistry to facilitate student learning and development, she enjoys food, baseball, and learning new languages.
It was a tremendous honor learning more about Dr. Espiritu, and we sincerely hope you enjoyed learning about this month’s SOTM!