Gaby Parra

Gabriella Parra attends the University of Arizona and is pursuing a Bachelor’s of Science in Natural Resources with an emphasis on Conservation Biology, and a minor in Mexican American Studies. She is a Pima Community College alumni, where she attained her Associates in Biology. In the of Summer 2023, she participated in the Latino Heritage Internship Program as an Research, Outreach, and Education intern at Zion National Park. Her project at Zion focused on collecting Latino history in Utah and completing outreach to the Latino community, at the end of the summer she presented her project in Washington D.C. in the Department of the Interior. You can see her blog posts about her LHIP internships at https://latinoheritageintern.org/author/gabriella-parra/ In the past year, Gabriella was an Earth Grant intern in the Ramirez-Andreotta Integrated Environmental Science and Health Risk Lab, where she assisted in a community-based soil testing project in Miami, Arizona. This year, she continues her work in the Ramirez-Andreotta lab, while completing her final year at the UofA. Gabriella has also brought her passion to her other previous roles at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, the Bio/Diversity Project, and the Immigrant Resource Center at Pima Community College. When Gabriella graduates, she will be joining a handful of women in her family who have earned a degree, and she will be the first person in her family to attain a degree in STEM. She finds her passion from growing up in a predominantly Mexican-American community, where she witnessed the need for environmental justice first-hand. Her ultimate goal is to make healthy environments more accessible to underprivileged communities, inspire love for the environment, help diversify spaces, and to give back to her community.