Microbiologist Raul Cuero

Microbiologist Raul Cuero PhD on Sparking Creativity on Living Smart with Patricia Gras

Raul Cuero was born and raised in a very poor neighborhood in Colombia. It was very rough growing up since he belonged to a very low social class. The had to sleep on the floor and thats when he started observing the cockroaches in the floor. He started understanding how they traveled in pairs and had many questions inside his brain. His parents did nor know how to write or read and Raul promised to himself that it would not happen to him. 

Cuero got involved in sports, started playing soccer until he got injures and developed an interest for basketball. He had always known he had a creative mind by doing exactly the opposite of what was expected of him. He grew in the basketball world in Colombia until he realized he was not taken intellectually serious, nobody believed he was able to have an intellectual career nor life.

He got a scholarship with his basketball and could study in the United States. In the video he states to Patricia that he never felt normal, he could never understand his basketball friends and it was hard for him to develop a sense of what was normal. He started to realize even more, how different the saw the world when he decided to drop  his basketball profession and become a microbiologist.

Cuero has been part of several discoveries like how to clean up oil easier after a spill or how to clean or destroy the nuclear and toxic material. Raul is a man that came from a background that was hard in every aspect and that nothing was expected of him. He took those criticisms and low expectations and believed in himself. He had the creative mind to understand he saw things differently and that he could help the world in any aspect.