Dr. Maia Larios-Sanz is a Tenured Full Professor in the Department of Biology and Dean of the Division of Natural and Behavioral Sciences and Engineering. She has been at UST since 2006.  

Originally from Mexico City and the child of Spanish immigrants, she moved to the United States in 1989 as an international student, earning a B.A. in Biology from Schreiner University (1993), and continuing with graduate studies at the University of Houston. She earned an M.S. in Biology in the lab of Dr. Peter Jurtshuk (1996), and a Ph.D. in Biochemistry under the direction of Dr. George Fox (2003). She was a National Library of Medicine Postdoctoral Fellow in the Keck Program for Computational Biology in the Department of Statistics at Rice University, working with Dr. Janet Siefert.  

She teaches the Introduction to Biology course series, Microbiology, Microbiology lab, and Nucleic Acids. Her undergraduate research laboratory studies microbial diversity and ecology, mosquito virus metagenomics, and bacterial antibiotic production. Dr. Larios-Sanz is also actively involved in the development of inquiry-based and active learning techniques for use in undergraduate STEM education, as well as science dissemination to the community.  

Dr. Larios-Sanz earned the Joseph M. McFadden Award for Excellence in Service in 2014 and the St. Thomas Aquinas Excellence in Teaching Award in 2022. When she is not working, Dr. Larios enjoys traveling, cooking, painting, reading and writing, and spending time with her family. She is the proud mother of four children. 

Ph.D. in Biochemistry, University of Houston 

M.S. in Biology, University of Houston 

B.A. in Biology, Schreiner University 

Selected Publications:  

Larios-Sanz, M., et al., Student-generated podcast annotations and assessment questions from primary literature. In Podcast Annotation and Resources in Microbiology by Rebecca Seipelt-Thiemann; Nancy Boury; Gwendowlyn S. Knapp; Amaya Garcia Costas; and Patrick Armstrong, Iowa State University Digital Press 701 Morrill Rd, Ames, Iowa 50011, United States, 2025.

Nam, E. A., Ribes-Zamora, A., Simmons Nout, A. D., Amin, S., Villares, G. J., Bagnall, R. A., Rosell, R. C., and Larios-Sanz, M. (2018). Comprehensive Inclusion of an Active and Inquiry-based Curriculum Increases Retention and Persistence in Biology. In EduLEARN Proceedings, International Conference on Education and New Learning Technologies, pp. 5457-5464. IATED Academy, 2018.

Cara, L., Baitemirova, M., Follis, J., Larios-Sanz, M., & Ribes-Zamora, A. The ATM- and ATR-related SCD domain is over-represented in proteins involved in nervous system development. Scientific Reports, 6, 19050., 2016.

Cara, L., Baitemirova, M., Duong, F., Larios-Sanz, M., and Ribes-Zamora, A. SCDFinder, a Web-based tool for the identification of putative novel ATM and ATR targets. Bioinformatics 30(23):3394-3395, 2014 (Epub ahead of print Aug 14, 2014).

Simmons, A., Larios-Sanz, M., and Rosell, R. Using mini-reports to teach scientific writing skills. Journal of the National Association of Biology Teachers (NABT) 76(8):551-555, 2014.

Ribes-Zamora, A., Amin, S., Simmons, A.D., Larios-Sanz, M., and Rosell, R.C. Bringing research into laboratory courses. EDULEARN13 Proceedings, pages: 5913-5918, 2013.

Larios-Sanz, M., Simmons, A., Bagnall, R.A., and Rosell, R. Implementation of a Service-Learning Module in Medical Microbiology and Cell Biology. Journal of Microbiology and Biology Education (JMBE) 12(1):29-37, 2011.