I am a Ph.D. Candidate in Politics and International Relations at Monash University and Program Manager for the Women and Democratic Change Initiative, which brings together activist-scholars from challenging and conflict-afflicted countries to better understand women's leadership and participation in social and pro-democracy movements. My doctoral research focuses on militarization and violence against women in Mexico's so-called "war on drugs" from a feminist political economy perspective.

 

As an emerging scholar, I frequently speak and write about the Gender-Security-Climate triple nexus; Feminist Foreign Policy; the Women, Peace and Security Agenda; and police accountability. My work has been published by several international media outlets, such as the Yale Journal of International Affairs, the International Peace Institute's Global Observatory, the Chatham House's The World Today, and Nexos. I have also been featured as a guest speaker in several podcasts, including the BBC's "Women's Hour" and Instick Media's "Things that Go Boom."

 

I have twelve years of experience informing and advancing progressive policies and social justice issues at the global and local levels, including drug policy reform in Mexico, racial justice and police accountability in the United States, and WPS and feminist foreign policy at the multilateral level. Before embarking on my PhD journey, I worked with diverse government and non-governmental organizations, such as Mexico's Permanent Mission to the UN, the Mexican Senate, the New York City government, the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), the Women's Environment and Development Organization (WEDO), the Centre for Feminist Foreign Policy (CFFP), the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), the Center for Policing Equity (CPE) and Data Cívica. During my time at Harvard Kennedy School, I also worked as a Research Assistant at the Harvard-based think tank, Evidence for Policy Design (EPoD), in Cambridge, Massachusets and Kathmandu, Nepal.

 

From 2017 to 2019, I completed my Master's in Public Policy at Harvard University as a recipient of the Fulbright-Garcia Robles scholarship. I specialized in Economics and Political Development, focusing on feminist political theory, criminal justice, and advanced econometrics. As co-chair of the HKS Gender Policy Union, I collaborated with local organizations and led several advocacy initiatives on sexual and reproductive rights and menstrual health. Moreover, I frequently contributed to the Kennedy School Review and authored op-eds on gender parity in Mexican politics and the linkages between tax reform and public safety. After graduating from Harvard, I received a grant from the Women and Public Policy Program at Harvard to participate in the High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development and the UN General Assembly as a representative of the Feminist Task Force and Women's Working Group on Financing for Development. At that time, I was also a political and technical adviser to the Permanent Mission of Mexico to the UN on gender equality and women's human rights.

 

My Ph.D. is fully funded by the Monash International Tuition Scholarship and Monash Graduate Scholarship. I am the recipient of several other scholarships and awards, including the Women in International Security 2021 Next Generation Fellowship, the 2017-2019 Fulbright-Garcia Robles Scholarship, the 2019 Harvard Women and Public Policy Program Oval Summer Fellowship, the 2018 Harvard Dubin Center for Public Leadership Summer Fellowship, the 2017 - 2019 Mexican Council for Science and Technology (CONACYT) Scholarship, the 2017 P.E.O. International Scholarship, the 2018 Harvard in Mexico Foundation Scholarship, and the 2015 Centro de Estudios Alonso Lujambio national essay award. I hold two Bachelor's Degrees in Political Science and International Relations with a special mention from the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM).