I am a proud alumna of Nathaniel Narbonne High School in Harbor City, CA. In 2015, I earned a B.A. in Sociology from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). During my college years, I advocated for Health for All policies in the state of California, such as SB 75, which expanded Medicaid access to undocumented children, and also for increased college access for undocumented students. Under the guidance and mentorship of Dr. Ruben Hernandez-León, I also conducted a mixed-methods research project with the General Mexican Consulate of Los Angeles to study how Ventanillas de Salud served as a health safety net and connector for the Mexican diaspora in LA.

During my MPH at UCLA, I remained involved in health advocacy and conducted research focused on the social determinants of health among vulnerable communities. Particularly, I worked on a research project housed at the UCLA Institute for Research, Labor, and Employment focused on the precarious conditions and socio-environmental abuses day laborers encounter on their day-to-day. Using data from the National Day Labor Survey, we studied the relationship between multi-level risk factors and adverse mental and physical health outcomes.

After finalizing the MPH, I began my doctoral career at UC Berkeley with an emphasis on population health sciences. As a doctoral student, I was a research fellow with the California Initiative for Health Equity and Action (Cal-IHEA), where I was a liaison between UC and CSU faculty and the policy-making community in Sacramento and managed the “Improving Health Access for All Immigrants” portfolio.