About

I started my academic journey as a first-generation student in community college, earning an A.A. in Social Science at San Jacinto College. I then transferred to the University of Houston, where I completed a B.S. in Psychology and obtained my first experience in research under the mentorship of Dr. Hanako Yoshida.

I completed a Ph.D. In Developmental Psychology from Indiana University-Bloomington, where I was an NSF Graduate Research Fellow working under the mentorship of Dr. Linda B. Smith.

I then completed an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at the University of Wisconsin-Madison working under the mentorship of Dr. Jenny Saffran.

In 2022, I received the Early Career Alumni Award from Indiana University’s Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences recognizing my contributions to the field as an early career scholar.

In 2025, I received the Outstanding Faculty Mentor Early Career Award from the Faculty Women’s Association at Arizona State University recognizing my mentoring of graduate students.

I am a daughter of Mexican immigrants, my first language is Spanish and I learned English at school as an ESL student. I identify as a bilingual and bicultural Mexican-American, Chicana, and Latina.