I am an Assistant Professor at Claremont McKenna College and the Director of the AMPLIFY Lab. I received my Ph.D. in Community Psychology from DePaul University in 2023, followed by postdoctoral training in Developmental Psychology at the University of Michigan. My T32 post-doctoral fellowship was funded through the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

I began my professional work with immigrant and refugee communities while pursuing my M.S.Ed. in Community and Social Change at the University of Miami (UM); obtaining this degree in 2016. I also received a B.S.Ed. in Human and Social Development (community development concentration) and Psychology from UM in 2013.

Much of my work is contextualized by my experiences as an immigrant, a Latina, and a first-generation college student. I migrated to the U.S. from Cuba at the age of 6, and grew up in a diverse immigrant community in Miami, Florida, seeing wide challenges but also strengths.

I’ve worked in a number of settings within the public sector. Prior to starting my PhD, I served as an AmeriCorps VISTA with Florida Campus Compact, held an internship with the Florida Department of Children and Families in the Office of Refugee Services, and worked with a series of nonprofits in Nashville, Tennessee.

I’ve led a broad range of research projects surrounding the immigrant and refugee experience, from issues pertaining the employment and health to youth development. While in Chicago, I collaborated with the Rohingya Culture Center, RefugeeOne, the Coalition of Immigrant Mental Health, the DePaul Migration Collaborative, Project: Vision, the National Mentoring Resource Center, and MENTOR: The National Mentoring Partnership.

I am looking forward to building new partnerships in Southern California.