Dr. Alfredo Quiñones-Hinojosa—just call him Dr. Q—was an impoverished teenager in a rural Mexican village when he hopped an 18-foot fence into California and found his way—through hope, hard work, and perseverance—into the loftiest heights of the American Dream. The eldest of five children, "Freddy," as he was then known, toiled by day as an undocumented migrant worker in the tomato fields and rail yards of Central California. On his days off, he attended Biology classes at the San Joaquin Delta College in Stockton. Then he became a gifted student at the University of California, Berkeley before transferring to Harvard, where he became a naturalized U.S. citizen and earned his medical degree, all before the age of 30.

After completing his residency at UC, San Francisco—where he also obtained a postdoctoral fellowship in Developmental and Stem Cell Biology and was funded by the National Institute of Health for his pioneering work, Dr. Q became a faculty member at The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. In less than six years, he became a Professor of Neurosurgery and Oncology, Neuroscience, and Cellular and Molecular Medicine—a meteoric rise in academia.

Dr. Q is widely regarded as one of the world's finest surgeons and scientists, operating on some 250 brain tumors every year and leading cutting-edge federally funded research to cure brain cancer. At Johns Hopkins, and now at the Mayo Clinic Florida, Dr. Q leads the Brain Tumor Stem Cell Laboratory, focusing on the surgical treatment of primary and metastatic brain tumors. He has conducted numerous research efforts on brain cancer and the role stem cells can play in fighting illness, with funding from the National Institute of Health, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Howard Hughes Foundation, among others.

In 2011, he co-founded Mission:BRAIN, a nonprofit consortium of U.S. medical professionals, suppliers, and volunteers that conduct neurosurgical missions in countries where health care is lacking.

Currently the Neurosurgeon-in-Chief, Professor, and Physician-Scientist in the Department of Neurologic Surgery at Mayo Clinic in Florida, Dr. Q has the distinction of being the William J. and Charles H. Mayo Professor.

Dr. Q enthusiastically recounts stories from his life as a top brain surgeon and neuroscientist—and how he gained his sense of precision in the operating room from his work picking tomatoes in the San Joaquin Valley. He is a mentor to young people and an ardent champion of STEM education, encouraging students to pursue careers in Science, Technology, Education, and Math.