Rafael (Rafa) was born and raised in Guatemala City, Guatemala. He graduated from Graz University of Technology (Graz, Austria) with a Diplom-Ingenieur degree (German equivalent to a B.S. and M.Sc.). He performed his master's thesis research in the Research Centre Juelich (Juelich, Germany) under Dr. Klaus Guenther and Dr. Sabine Becker. He investigated metals in plants with SF-ICP-MS. Rafa joined the McLean group in the spring of 2012.