Hi there! My name is Chrissy. I'm Latina (
) and I work at the intersection of science and education to ensure that anyone can thrive in STEM.
I earned my PhD in Chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley. At the start of my PhD, I worked to better understand how water molecules vibrate and interact with one another. My desire to make the field of chemistry more diverse and inclusive led me to switch my research focus to STEM education. I dedicated the rest of dissertation research to developing methods to understand issues that negatively affect diversity, equity, inclusion, and sense of belonging within graduate communities. Using the data I gathered, I designed and implemented interventions to directly combat these disparities. I am thankful for the support I received from the National Science Foundation, and Ford Foundation, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
I earned dual Bachelor degrees in Chemistry and Neuroscience from the University of Washington in 2014, and graduated as that year’s UW College of Arts and Sciences Gonfalon. My passion for travel, history, and photography led me to study abroad in Italy, Scotland, India, and England. Before starting my PhD, I also spent a year as a DAAD Graduate Scholar doing research at the Fritz Haber Institute in Berlin to understand the structure of molecules at ultracold temperatures.
