Emma was raised in El Mante Tamaulipas, a small town in the rural countryside northeast of Mexico City. A high percentage of the population has diabetes, and blindness is a common complication in patients of this small community. So, while growing up, Dr. Lessieur Contreras was always intrigued with diabetic retinopathy and ways to prevent it. She attended medical school at the Universidad Autónoma de Tamaulipas in Mexico and earned her Ph.D. in molecular medicine with an emphasis in ophthalmology from Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University in Ohio. For her graduate studies, she received support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Med into Grad Initiative and a minority supplemental graduate fellowship from the National Eye Institute (NEI). She was a member of the Molecular Medicine Diversity Initiative Group, a student-driven diversity group focused on supporting and educating other minority students pursuing graduate school and careers in science. Currently, Dr. Lessieur Contreras is a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California, Irvine (UCI). Her research focuses on understanding the role that the immune system plays in the development of diabetic retinopathy. For her postdoctoral studies, she has received a minority supplemental postdoctoral fellowship from NEI. Dr. Lessieur Contreras is committed to leadership, mentoring, and outreach activities to enhance diversity in the biomedical sciences. She is a chair of the Chican@/Latin@ Staff Association mentorship program, which aims to inspire, guide, and support the next generation of UCI undergraduate Latinx students to pursue further training. She is also a member of the Committee of Women in Vision Research, seeking to empower women of all backgrounds to achieve full potential in their careers as researchers, clinicians, and leaders.