About Me

I am Josefina (she/her/ella), 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. I am a sociologist and social demographer. My research is about health and socioeconomic inequities across the life course. I am interested in diverging outcomes across race/ethnicity and documentation status. I primarily use quantitative methods in my research.

I am a 2024-25 University of California, Irvine Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellowship (and Dr. Feizal Waffarn Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellowship) recipient.

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

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.