José undertook his early studies at the Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolas de Hidalgo, where he completed a BSc in Biology. He then went on to a PhD in the Department of Genetic Engineering (CINVESTAV), where he remained as associate professor after completing his studies. In 2002, he spent time at the Rice University in Texas as a visiting professor in the Department of Biosciences. He left CINVESTAV in 2004 to start the Plant Development Lab in the Institute of Chemical and Biological Research at the Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolas de Hidalgo. His current areas of interest include plant-microbe symbioses, plant nutrition, and hormonal regulation of root system architecture. José has earned the prestigious Arturo Rosenblueth prize for the best PhD thesis, the Marcos Moshinsky Fellowship, and the prize of the Mexican Academy of Sciences for young scientists in natural sciences. He is a member of the National System of Researchers (Level 3) in México. José has published 104 scientific papers in JCR-indexed journals, 43 articles in national journals, six articles in congress proceedings, and 17 book chapters from prestigious international publishers, which have been cited, according to GOOGLE SCHOLAR (14/03/2023), 11516 times with h-index = 45.