Interests & Focus

How does culture shape our autobiographical memories?
What effects do acculturation and migration have on cognitive abilities as we age?
What is the best way to involve communities in our research?

These are questions that I have developed as I have continued my research career. Below you will see some of my research interests and where I would like to take my research.

Below is my Curriculum Vitae (CV)

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Last updated 11.12.2024

Main Research Question

What protective factors in traditional Latine culture and language contribute to cognitive resilience in aging, specifically contributing to the Hispanic Paradox?

I was inspired to explore this question because of my own family experiences and research journey. I realize that migration has a large impact on the cognitive trajectories of Latine people.

Research Interests

Cross Cultural Cognition

What similarities and differences exist between cultures and within cultures themselves at the cognitive level? While I focus on autobiographical memory how are other aspects of cognition such as attention, language, decision making, and visual perception are influenced by culture?

Latines /Hispanic Populations

Latines have been traditonally understudied in cognitive science, how do we explore Latine groups and further understand the cognitive abilities of this group?

Emotion and Memory

How does emotion influence the content of autobiographical memories? How does this content change between culture? How does relation to the self influence the content of memories?

Migration and Aging

Many individuals migrate to new countries and areas every year. As individuals migrate to new areas how does acculturation affect long term cognitive abilities?

Bilingualism and Memory

How do bilingual individuals navigate between languages to express their memories? Particularly Spanish-English bilinguals, who access different cultural frameworks and emotional expressions when recalling experiences in each language.

Computational Text Analyses

How can we use computational approaches like LIWC and LSA to analyze autobiographical narratives across different languages and cultures more efficiently than traditional hand-coding methods?

Professional Interests

Ease the Process of Making Career Decisions

Encourage students to access helpful resources, programs, and people that can help them achieve their goals. How can these materials be more accessible to these students?

Support Ethical Research Practices

How can we access more sources of research and cite overlooked authors? Prestige, h-index, and "publish or perish" mentalities can lead us to gloss over high quality research articles that may not have these features. Therefore, how can we find under-cited research articles and dismantle "citation cartels"?

Supporting Underrepresented Researchers

As an underrepresented (UR) scholar, how can I support scholars from underrepresented backgrounds to thrive in their research careers? Where can UR scholars access financial resources? How can we cite more UR scholars?

Promote Balance in Academia

How can we promote work-life balance in the academic world? We cannot mold new things from dust. Because of that we need to find a way that celebrates our work while allowing us to lead fulfiling lives with our loved ones and families.

Explore Community Led Research

How do we serve our communities with our research? Our communities make our research possible and we should ensure that they benefit from our findings as much as we do from their help.