Yesenia Navarro is a recent graduate at the University of Washington where she studied Human Evolutionary Biology and Anthropology of Globalization. She was highly involved in research at her institution and her interests range from infectious diseases to demography field work in rural parts of the world. During her time at the University of Washington she was the founder and leader of the Latino Fellowship (LaFe) and also participated in a Nigerian Dance team where she found her love for different dance styles. Additionally, Yesenia had the privilege of traveling abroad to research the migrant trends of the Palestinian Refugees in Jordan . It was through this impactful experience that Yesenia envisioned her future plans to attend graduate school to obtain a Phd in Epidemiology and Anthropology. She would like to work within the field of public health practice, implementing public health policy in prevention and sustainable practices against zoonotic diseases. Yesenia has just recently finished up her internship at the Harvard School of Public Health in the Summer Program in Epidemiology. This internship has broadened her knowledge base in public health and has helped her to narrow down her focus of study. She had a truly incredible experience at Harvard and it was her goal to maintain such experience as a Prep Scholar.

Yesenia currently is working with Ivy Hurwitz at the University of New Mexico, on a paratransgenic approach on the Phlebotomine sand fly in order to create vector control against the protozoan Leishmania. Leishmaniasis is a tropical disease that presents itself at cutaneous and visceral lesions in the body and it is deadly when left untreated. Yesenia hopes to gain valuable expertise on Leishmania in order to translate her work for her future endeavors as a future Epidemiologist.