Margarita (Maggie) Hernandez, (they/she)

Professional Bio

Margarita (Maggie) Hernandez is a National Science Foundation (NSF) and National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded Ph.D. Candidate in Anthropology at the Penn State. Maggie’s research seeks to understand the connection between genomic diversity, lived experiences, how those lived experiences are embodied, and if/how they influence health trajectories within Latinx populations living in the United States. Additionally, Maggie’s work seeks to dispel the myth that all Latinx people are the same by investigating the richness of our individual ancestries, lived experiences, and cultures. For their dissertation work, Maggie is investigating how the process of immigration shapes ancestry within diaspora populations and how histories of immigration, experiences of discrimination, and sociopolitics are associated with adverse health outcomes within individuals of Cuban descent. Maggie is a first generation Cuban-American, born to Cuban immigrant parents and grandparents. Working within their community in South Florida, Maggie hopes to use her research in service of her community to advocate and fight for social changes that benefit all historically oppressed and disenfranchised groups.