Sarah’s journey into population sciences began as an undergraduate research assistant collecting survey and biospecimen data on Mexican-origin adolescents. “It was my first exposure to how research could take every day experiences and make them observable and useful for understanding well-being at the population level,” she reflects.

Inspired by this experience, Sarah’s dissertation examines how social stressors shape aging through three distinct lenses: regional variations in perceived discrimination, the biological mechanisms linking stress exposure to accelerated aging, and how kinship and agency influence migration decisions among older Latino immigrants in Wisconsin. Alongside primary mentor Michal Engelman and other CDE & CDHA collaborators, Sarah has published in the American Journal of Epidemiology and Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities, earning award-winning recognition at national conferences including PAA, ASA, and GSA.

Ultimately, Sarah hopes her research reinforces that addressing health inequalities across the life course requires understanding how unequally distributed lived experiences shape our biology from birth to old age.

Outside of research, Sarah enjoys baking. She is currently perfecting a chocolate chip cookie recipe, and loves taking on technically ambitious bakes like croissants and Mexican and Salvadoran sweets. Sarah also finds a lot of joy in doing very amateur film photography.