Alumnus Ernie X. Pérez Almodóvar recently was promoted to director of manufacturing at Amgen in Juncos, Puerto Rico, where he has worked since earning his Ph.D. in chemical engineering in 2012. Pérez Almodóvar was a researcher in Lawrence R. Quarles Professor Giorgio Carta's Bioseparations Lab while studying at UVA. In 2012, he earned the Louis T. Rader award.
He joined Amgen's downstream processes development team as a scientist, becoming a process development senior scientist and senior manager in 2016. In 2017, he was accepted into Amgen's Operations Leaders Program and moved to the Formulation and Fill facility as a senior manager to complete his first rotation. During his time at the Formulation and Fill facility, and in collaboration with the rest of the senior management leaders, his teams supported multiple new product introductions, decreased disposition cycle time, and implemented improvement projects that led to increased production in 2018 to more than 50 million units.
In his current role, Pérez Almodóvar's manufacturing team is responsible for approximately 80 percent of the formulation and fill production for Amgen worldwide.
In addition to his work at Amgen, Pérez Almodóvar has provided support to community-based organizations such as Casa Pueblo in Adjuntas, an environmental organization focusing on changing the energy landscape and conservation education in Puerto Rico.