Stephany was born in the Dominican Republic, but moved to Providence, RI at the age of 3 and has lived there ever since. She is a junior at the College of the Holy Cross pursuing a degree in Sociology with a concentration in Latin American, Latinx, and Caribbean studies. Throughout, her college career Stephany has dedicated her time to mentoring first-year students. However, she has also conducted bilingual research for an open-access database called Cinegogía where she created film guides for professors teaching Latin American Cinema. Through this research project, Stephany not only expanded the database but begin to add films that gave Afro representation.
As a Sociology major, Stephany has been interested in seeing how different systems and institutions shape one’s life, and how policy plays a role in this. Throughout this COVID-19 pandemic, Stephany and her community have been directly impacted by the lack of access to healthcare. Thus, this has led her interest to shift into health policy, eradicating health disparities and reconstructing the institution of health to achieve health equity. Through the ACE internship and being a part of the public health research team, Stephany hopes to make policy briefs more accessible to voters from all different backgrounds. In her free time, Stephany likes to sing, watch Netflix documentaries, and facetime with friends.