I am a native New Mexican and a graduate of the University of New Mexico (1990, 1992), the University of New Mexico Biomedical Sciences Graduate Program (1995), and the University of New Mexico School of Medicine (1999). My residency training was on the American Board of Internal Medicine Research Investigator Pathway at the University of Texas Health System, and I am a certified specialist in Internal Medicine and Nephrology. After nearly 20 years of academic practice in Texas (where I served as a staff physician for the Audie Murphy Memorial VA Hospital and the Clinical Nephrology Fellowship Program Director, earning tenure as an Associate Professor of Medicine in 2017), I returned to my hometown of Albuquerque to assume the role of Renal Section Chief for the New Mexico Veterans Administration Health Care System and the Directorship of the Kidney Institute of New Mexico. My interests are in the molecular and cellular mechanisms of gadolinium-based contrast agent-induced diseases, gadolinium retention, and iatrogenic fibrosis as the result of metabolic derangements (e.g., obesity, diabetes mellitus). Gadolinium-based contrast agent-induced systemic fibrosis is a severely disabling and potentially fatal disorder occurring in patients with compromised kidney function. It is clearly associated with exposure to gadolinium-based magnetic resonance imaging contrast. Not all patients with renal disease acquire it, however, and the pathogenesis is largely unexplored. Because the fibrotic lesions stain strongly for CD34 and procollagen type I, it was theorized that the majority of the cellularity was from circulating, bone marrow–derived white blood cells termed “fibrocytes.” My laboratory was the first to prove this experimentally. Furthermore, we were the first to demonstrate that bone marrow possesses a ‘memory’ of gadolinium exposure— gadolinium-induced fibrosis is enhanced in those who have had a prior administration of magnetic resonance imaging contrast. By 2017 it was recognized that all patients exposed to gadolinium-based contrast agents retain the non-physiologic metal in every vital organ, including the brain. There is long-term retention of gadolinium—a known toxic metal—regardless of the brand and irrespective of kidney function. There are thousands of members of social media groups focused on the chronic adverse effects of gadolinium-based contrast agents.