I recently completed my PhD in Education at UCLA. My dissertation research used participatory design in a collaborative visual storytelling project with young people who received heart transplants as children and are transitioning to adulthood and adult healthcare. The collaborative films that were created have been screened at international conferences, at specialized medical symposia for heart transplant professionals, at seminars aimed at supporting transplant patients and their families in transition, and in multiple undergraduate seminars addressing a variety of topics including disability, gender, and education.
While completing my dissertation I developed two additional lines of collaborative research. As a member of The Asthma Files (TAF), a decade-long research consortium, I participate in TAF-California working with Kim Fortun, Mike Fortun, Sharon Traweek and a global network of scholars on air pollution governance and environmental justice issues across California. As an educational researcher I work with Fred Ariel Hernandez to study how K-16 education is responding to the complex and interwoven crises represented by COVID-19, BLM and ongoing educational, health, environmental, and economic disparity in the San Gabriel Valley of Southern California.
