McAllen, Texas, United States
• Communicated directly with Lilith Fund clients seeking abortions to provide financial assistance and material support to facilitate procedure logistics. • Served as a primary contact for clinic relations, and proactively communicated and collaborated with other abortion funds, practical and legal support, and community organizations in the state of Texas. • Recruited, worked on retention of volunteers, and supervised and assisted all active hotline volunteers. • Collected and analyzed hotline data in order to evaluate the program and provide design recommendations that aligned with the organization’s mission and sustainability goals.
• Provided support to physician (M.D.) with interpreting for Spanish-speaking patients during medical exams. • Interacted with an average of 40 patients daily; approximately 30% of patients were immigrants and 50% were uninsured. • Managed heavy volume of phone calls for physician’s patient schedule, as well as responded to emails, mail, and faxes in a clear, direct, and timely manner.
• Support the Research & Check Out Desk to serve patrons seeking public library services. • Duties include checking in/out items, paging books for patrons, shelving books, assisting with any questions regarding the library, research catalog for specific items, etc.
• Support Chemistry Department administer undergraduate exams for general chemistry and organic chemistry students within the College of Natural Sciences.
• Maintain, balance, and audit petty cash funds and attend the public service counter. • Routinely perform copier and printer rounds to include basic maintenance. • Answer phones and process over the counter copy and print services from faculty, students, and staff.
• University Leadership Initiative is a youth-led grassroots organization that advocates for immigrant rights on the local, state, and national levels and serves as a support system for the undocumented community. • I have been part of a strong team of leaders and local partnerships, such as the Equal Justice Center, Education Austin, and the Mexican Consulate, that provide educational forums about DACA and free legal workshops for the immigrant community in order to provide support for the application process.
Under the guidance and mentorship of Andrew D. Ellington, Ph.D. and Gwen M. Stovall, Ph.D., I took part of a research stream at the University of Texas at Austin where I worked on finding an aptamer (a synthetically derived RNA or DNA molecule that binds to a specific target) against S100B. High levels of the protein S100B are associated with the severity of neurological disorders that affect the central nervous system. Finding an aptamer with high affinity to the calcium-binding site of S100B would enable for a new therapeutic discovery that could potentially reduce the brain damage and symptoms found in neurodegenerative diseases. This noninvasive, safe treatment could create a pathway to diminishing memory loss in Alzheimer’s patients, or reducing neuroinflammation in acute chronic brain injuries enabling the medical field to battle human neurological disorders.