About Me

Josefina (she/her/ella) is a Propel Postdoctoral Scholar in the Department of Epidemiology and Population Health at Stanford University’s School of Medicine with Dr. Mathew Kiang’s lab. Her research is about health and socioeconomic inequities across the life course. She is interested in diverging outcomes across race/ethnicity and documentation status.

Josefina earned her B.A. in psychology with a public health minor from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). She pursued her doctoral education in sociology at UCLA as well. Her doctoral studies were supported by the Health Policy Research Scholars program, a program by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. In her free time, Josefina enjoys dancing bachata and salsa. She also enjoys playing and watching soccer.

Research Interests

My research is about how immigration status influences the lives and deaths of individuals in the United States. I am interested in the socioeconomic and health outcomes and immigrants and racialized minorities. I recently published an op-ed about the relationship between aging and immigration in the United States. It is available in the Public Health Post.

Research Support

I am in the inaugural cohort of the Health Policy Research Scholars program, supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. My research has also been supported by: the UC Collaborative to Promote Immigrant and Student Equity, the California Center for Population Research, the UC Network on Child Health, Poverty and Public Policy, and the University of Wisconsin Madison’s Center for Financial Security.

Publications

I have published my research in the Journal of Immigrant Minority Health, Demographic Research, and the Community Development Innovation Review. I have also published in Latino Studies and Sociology Compass.