Angela Isabel Padilla Acevedo

I attribute my success to tenacity and hard work. I consistently strive to make the most of the opportunities presented to me, supported by sustained effort and dedication over many years.

One of the best pieces of advice I received came from a mentor early in my career, a senior scientist who was a lady at the company I was working at. When I asked her what it meant to be successful in a certain field and how I could be successful in the group, she told me that success can be defined in many ways, but ultimately, success is to make the most out of the opportunities that you are presented with. She explained that not everybody can get the same opportunities because that's not possible, but whichever opportunities you're presented with, little or a lot, if you make the most out of it, then you should consider that you had a very good degree of success because you made something out of it. I do value that advice, and I think about that a lot of the times.

In my industry, which is very highly male-dominated, most of the time in most meetings I'm very highly outnumbered by men. One thing I've always found is that you encounter situations where men, even if you are as good as them and as smart as them, try to overpower you with questions or use some sort of intimidating tactics in meetings to try to show that maybe you don't have what it takes to be at their level. The advice that I would give is to have confidence in what you know and try to show that. To be honest with you, it took me a long time to come to that realization. When I was very young and starting this career, I wasn't like that, but with time I understood that you have to be confident in what you know and then try to respectfully show that there is a reason for you to be there in that room where you are presenting your work. You know as much as the others and can be an equal or even better contributor. So it's basically try to display confidence, I would say. That's one of the key pieces of advice I would give.

One of the biggest challenges in my field is gaining access to high-visibility projects, as opportunities are not always determined by technical merit alone and can be influenced by internal dynamics and relationships. To address this, I take a proactive approach by initiating my own projects and developing ideas independently to demonstrate value through results. I also build external visibility through active involvement in professional organizations such as the Society of Plastic Engineers and leadership roles in industry conferences like the International Polyolefins Conference, which helps me expand my network and strengthen my presence in the field.

In my work, ethics is most important to me because in science, we have to be very ethically conscious and make sure we report the data as it is. There is leeway sometimes, and you see things like people lacking in these areas, but to me, ethics is very important in the job that I do. In my life in general, I would say loyalty. Throughout my life, that's something that I've always valued very much, is loyalty.