Today we’d like to introduce you to Monica Guerrero Vazquez.
Hi Monica, so excited to have you on the platform. So, before we get into questions about your work life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today.
I am a first-generation immigrant from Ecuador. I grew up in Madrid, Spain, and Baltimore, Maryland became home in 2011. I am a computer scientist by training with a bachelor’s and master’s degrees in computer science and information technology. Migration has shaped my life, who I am, and what I do. I have worked in international cooperation since 2006 with the Spanish Cooperation Agency, and the United Nations. In the search for my purpose in life, I started working at Centro SOL, the Center of Excellence for Latino Health at Johns Hopkins University, in 2014. I am passionate for human development, social justice, and health equity. I have worked with immigrant and Latino communities, building trust, empowering individuals and their communities, and mentoring youth. In 2017, I became one of the inaugural fellows of the Bloomberg American Health Initiative that tackles the decline of life expectancy in the US in five focus areas: adolescent health, addiction & overdose prevention, environmental challenges, obesity & the food system, and violence. I have been working in the adolescent health focus area and developed various initiatives addressing needs and leveraging youth lives. I obtained my MPH in 2018 and am currently pursuing my DrPH at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in the Health Equity and Social Justice concentration. I have focused my public health work on immigrant and Latino health, and building interconnections between the health systems and communities. I am a member of various boards, including the community-research advisory board at JH, I am also a member of the State’s Commission on Suicide Prevention, a subcommittee co-chair of the City’s Trauma Informed Care Taskforce, and a director on the board of 211-Maryland and Friends of Patterson Park a wonderful group building community at Patterson Park. I am interested in addressing health inequities through human development and community empowerment.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Being an immigrant shapes your life in many ways. For example, the lack of social networks that we often take for granted can make your life very difficult. I learned to navigate through education and career with little support, and struggle with the impostor syndrome in most of my younger years. It affects your overall mental health! I am grateful to be where I am today surrounded by many caring professionals, family, and friends, who supported me to be the first one in my family to graduate from college and pursue a career in an area I am passionate about.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am the executive director of Centro SOL, the Center of Health and Opportunities for Latinos at Johns Hopkins. My initial training was in computer science. I have a bachelor’s and master’s degree in technology. I worked in international cooperation in my early career, and I have dedicated most of my work in the US to public health. I am very proud to be in a place where I can “build”, I started in a new center that I have been working to build and been part of what it is today, a reference Center of Excellence for Latino Health.
Where we are in life is often partly because of others. Who/what else deserves credit for how your story turned out?
I have had many mentors in my life, classmates, coworkers, friends, family, colleagues, supervisors. I would not have enough space here to list all of them. I came to develop a skill to learn from everyone. As an immigrant and being the first one to pursue a college degree, there is so much you don’t know, I rely on those who can guide me. I would not be here without each of those mentors. And not only professionally, I learned from them personally too. Things like where to have a good dinner, where to fix your car, or that to advocate for yourself can be great things to learn from your mentors.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://jhcentrosol.org
- Instagram: instagram.com/jhcentrosol
- Facebook: facebook.com/jhcentrosol
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/monicaguerrero/
- Twitter: twitter.com/jhcentrosol
- Youtube: youtube.com/@johnshopkinscentrosol7603
