I am a proud alumna of Nathaniel Narbonne High School in Harbor City, California. I earned my B.A. in Sociology from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in 2015. As an undergraduate, I actively advocated for immigrant health and education equity, supporting efforts like SB 75, which expanded Medi-Cal to undocumented children, and initiatives to improve college access for undocumented students. Under the mentorship of Dr. Rubén Hernández-León, I led a mixed-methods research project in collaboration with the General Mexican Consulate of Los Angeles to examine how Ventanillas de Salud functioned as a vital health safety net for the Mexican diaspora in Los Angeles.

During my Master of Public Health (MPH) at UCLA, I continued my advocacy and research on the social determinants of health, particularly among structurally vulnerable communities. At the UCLA Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, under the mentorship of Drs. Abel Valuenzuela and Randall Kuhn, I led a study examining the hazardous working and environmental conditions faced by day laborers. Drawing on data from the National Day Labor Survey, we explored how multi-level risk exposures shaped their physical and mental health outcomes. This study motivated me to pursue a PhD.

During my PhD in Population Health Sciences at the University of California, Berkeley, I was a research fellow with the California Initiative for Health Equity and Action (Cal-IHEA). In this role, I served as a liaison between UC and CSU faculty and state policymakers in Sacramento, helping bridge research into actionable policy. I also managed Cal-IHEA’s “Improving Health Access for All Immigrants” portfolio, which focused on advancing health equity through inclusive policy solutions.