community health expert & advocate
Juviza is social impact driven public health professional, writer, visual storyteller, and child of immigrants.
Born and raised in Washington Heights, a largely Dominican neighborhood in New York City, Juviza is deeply influenced by her lived experience. Elements of this can be seen in both her professional pursuits and creative work—her writing and visual pieces weave in personal narratives about culture, matrilineality, and the daily unspoken stressors first-generation children experience. These themes align with her public health interests, which are centered around the health of women of color and their children across the life course.
Juviza is an alumna of Iona College and Teachers College, Columbia University, and is currently pursuing her PhD at the CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy. She is an ardent advocate of data equity and using intersectional frameworks and community-centered design in research. Juviza is especially passionate about utilizing mixed methods approaches, data visualization, and narrative inquiry in her scholarly work.
“if we wanted to. people of color could burn the world down. for what we have experienced. are experiencing. but we don’t. – how stunningly beautiful that our sacred respect for the earth. for life. is deeper than our rage”