Currently I am a faculty member at the Lynch School of Education in the Counseling, Developmental and School Psychology at Boston College. Most of my research has focused on social issues that affect youth's positive development. My main areas of interest are youth violence, community violence prevention programs, especially youth mentoring initiatives, youth and public policy, and undocumented migration to the United States among Salvadoran youth.

After receiving a bachelor's degree in psychology from UCA, I was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to pursue my graduate studies (MA and PhD) in social psychology at Loyola University Chicago. In 2008, I completed my doctorate and received a best poster award for my doctoral work from the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI; Division 9 of the American Psychological Association) during the 2008 Biennial Convention. That same year I started working as a postdoctoral fellow in the Institute for Health Research and Policy (IHRP) at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) until 2010. I have also worked at the University of Central America (UCA) in the Department of Sociology and Political Sciences during 2011, Don Bosco University in 2012-2013, and SUNY Brockport in 2013-2014.

In 2010, I helped launch the Salvadoran Journal of Psychology and became its first editor. More recently, in 2011, I was elected as the regional Vice-President for Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean of the Interamerican Psychological Society (IPS) for the 2011-2013 period. I currently serve as Associate Editor of the Interamerican Journal of Psychology.