I am a Ph.D. Candidate in Community Sustainability at Michigan State University (MSU), with two graduate specializations. One in Gender, Justice, and Environmental Change, and the other in Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems. I hold a Master's and Bachelors's in Sociology from Universidad del Valle in Colombia. 

I am a social scientist in gender, social justice, and rural sustainability studies. My research topics include gendered-power relations, women's empowerment, and the social effects associated with the implementation of development projects (e.g., women's economic empowerment and large-scale hydroelectric dams). My work is influenced by the Gender and Development (GAD) and Feminist Political Ecology (FPE) scholarships, and I use qualitative and quantitative research methods.

I have eight years of research experience in rural settings. I am a research assistant at MSU studying the social impacts of large-scale hydroelectric dams in Brazil. My doctoral dissertation focuses on gender and power in rural Colombia and Honduras. Previously, I was a research assistant for the subdivision of Gender at The Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT). At CIAT, I worked on women's contributions to agriculture, empowerment, and gender and agricultural technologies in Colombia, Ecuador, and Nicaragua.