[2] Her father, Antonio Souza, was an art collector and critic who first discovered, in 1960, the painter Francisco Toledo.

[3] Her interest in biology was further cemented after she was given a Time Life book to read about the discovery of DNA when she was ten years old.

[1] She was a postdoctoral fellow from 1990-1992 in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of California, Irvine (UCI) with Richard Lenski where she worked on the long-term E. coli experiment.

[4] Her research focuses mainly on understanding the evolutionary, physiological, and ecological processes that are involved in the adaptation, speciation, and diversification of the biodiversity of microorganisms.

Much of her research and conservation efforts focus on microbial mats and communities in Cuatro Ciénegas, Coahuila, Mexico.