About Me

I grew up in the Eastern Coachella Valley, a primarily working-class Chicanx community in Southern California, where I first encountered the consequences of inequality. In my community, we lacked grocery stores, sidewalks, or parks, yet just 20 minutes to the west were some of the wealthiest resort communities in the country.

I first left the East Valley when I began college at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) as a first-generation student. In my first year, I was struck by Howard Zinn's essay “Growing Up Class-Conscious.” He expressed his resentment towards the United States’ bootstraps myth because he witnessed how hard his parents worked yet remained poor. Zinn captured, with incredible precision, a contradiction that has defined much of my own life. This contradiction partly explains why I study people’s reasoning about inequality today.

In 2018, I graduated from UCSC with a B.A. in Psychology and a minor in Latin American and Latinx Studies. After earning my undergraduate degree, I commenced my graduate studies at the University of Michigan, where, in 2023, I earned my PhD in Education and Psychology. Currently, I am an Assistant Professor of Human and Organizational Development at Vanderbilt University.