Sebastian was born in Bogota, Colombia and lived in many places around Colombia before enrolling at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia for his undergraduate studies. If had not been fortunate enough to try mathematics as a major, he probably would have become an engineer.His personal experiences from attending public schools have given him a strong understanding of the great difficulties low-income students must face in order to earn a degree and become scientist. Sebastian went to Berkeley for his Ph.D. and was a postdoc at Jussieu and the University of Chicago. He will start an assistant professorship for the next 3 years at the University of Chicago.

Sebastian's research is in the intersection of Geometry and Dynamical Systems.His work has focused on group understanding actions on manifolds,which is the study of subgroups of homeomorphisms of manifolds,mainly subgroups of Lie groups.

“For me, the Hispanic Heritage Month is a celebration of our culture and a way to share our achievements and views with people from other cultures. I am very grateful for the effort of Lathisms for highlighting and showing that the Latino-Mathematical community is increasing and that we continue to make important contributions to science.”

-Sebastian Hurtado Salazar

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