Ada | Marta Fejerman

The woman at her table did not ask any questions. Ada told the story she had been given, the parts she could conjure without hurting the thing: the traveler who left a place where everyone called each other by homegrown names and the sound of bowls being set on tables; the ship that took her through a narrow sea where the moon rode low; a small town with red-tiled roofs where the traveler learned a new word for “bread” and kept the locket against her heart as a promise. The traveler married and kept the secret of her childhood in that silver star, passing it to the granddaughter when the nights grew long.

Her work has shown that Latina women with higher levels of Indigenous American ancestry may have a lower overall risk of developing breast cancer but often face worse outcomes once diagnosed. Ada Marta Fejerman

As the principal investigator, she oversees research into breast cancer genetics, specifically investigating common risk-associated genetic variants and the development of polygenic risk scores (PRS) tailored for women of Latin American heritage. The woman at her table did not ask any questions

Ada smiled, the smile of someone who had learned to trust an old, quiet truth. She opened the box and found the key that fit no lock. The child’s eyes were bright. Ada put the key into the child’s palm and said, quietly, “Some doors we cannot open for others. But we can learn the shape of their hinges.” Her work has shown that Latina women with