I am bee. My parents immigrated to the United States in the early 1970's from Mexico. I was born and raised in California and identify as a Mexican- American, cisgender, heterosexual female. As a child, I studied in Guadalajara, Mexico for five years. I am fluent in Spanish and consider English my second language. Recently I have started to learn Haitian Creole. I am married and have one dog (Camelo) and one cat (Kitty). In my free time, I enjoy nature, biking, reading and photography (the images in these pages are my work!).
I completed my undergraduate education at California State University Northridge, where I attained baccalaureate degrees in psychology and child development and a minor in human sexuality. I completed my Master's degree in experimental psychology in the research methods and statistics track at the University of Cincinnati. My formal statistical training was largely focused on non-linear statistics and multivariate analysis and modeling. In addition to my formal education and research training, I have 15 years of combined leadership experience in business management and the non-profit sector. For the past 13 years, I have supported physician and medical student research. My experiences, across several laboratories and scientific settings, have trained me to conduct, manage and supervise a multitude of research projects and teams.
At the age of 8, I taught my four-year-old sister how to read! I guess you can say that I discovered my passion for teaching at a very young age. I did not discover my love for research until much later, but once I learned that I could combine teaching, learning, and research into one job- - I knew that I would pursue a career in as a college educator. Currently, I teach at Stetson Univeristy and the University of Central Florida. I have over 15 years of expereince teaching undergraduate courses in statistics, sociology and psychology. As I have gotten older (and wiser) I have learned that teaching can happen in many contexts, thus currently I spend a lot of time teaching patients how to advocate for themselves when navigating the healthcare system.
Broadly, my own research focus and interests are in the training of medical professionals, socialization of medical students, health access and social inequalities in health and medicine. More specifically, my research agenda is focused on social correlates of health that I see as associated with health equity and justice, such as race, class, language, gender, and gender identity.
“At the end of the day, we can endure much more than we think we can.” -Frida Khalo