text: Blanco initially wanted to study medicine after high school and become a neurosurgeon. However, she decided against this path after witnessing a surgery during a vocational internship and having a negative reaction to the sight of blood. She chose to pursue chemical engineering after shadowing a chemical engineer at a Venezuelan chemical company.
  Blanco earned her bachelor's degree in Chemical Engineering from Universidad Simón Bolívar in Venezuela.
  She moved to the United States in 2017 to attend New York University. Blanco has discussed initially feeling "so behind and so out of place" at NYU because, due to a lack of funding, the university she previously attended in Venezuela didn't have the up-to-date laboratory equipment and technology that the NYU research labs had.
  Blanco earned her PhD in chemical engineering from New York University in 2020.