Welcome to
Jessica's
Blog!
Jessica is a graduate of the University of New Mexico, born and raised in the Albuquerque metro area. In 2019 she received her undergraduate degree in Sociology with a minor in Peace and Justice Studies and in 2021 she graduated with a Master of Public Policy degree from the University of New Mexico (UNM). She is also a transfer student, having first earned her Liberal Arts and Sociology Associate's degrees at Central New Mexico Community College (CNM) before transferring to UNM.
EDUCATION
Jessica started her higher education journey at CNM where she pursued dual degrees in Sociology and Liberal Arts. She desired to learn more about the people and the world around her, and she found the smaller class sizes and lower cost a great benefit to attending community college.
During her undergraduate studies, she continued learning about Sociology and social inequalities. She worked as a grant writer for the Rio Grande Food Project where she developed an interest in policy and evaluation. Her experience in social inequality studies and working with non-profit organizations informed her decision to join the UNM Masters in Public Policy (MPP) program.
In the MPP program, she conducted several policy research projects, focused on voter turnout, educational outcomes, and other social justice topics. She learned invaluable skills and strategies for informing leaders in making policy decision, focusing on how to assess feasibility of ideas, implications for future policymakers, and potential threats and challenges in order to address common arguments. Jessica's MPP also prepared her to evaluate policies and programs through her work with the UNM Evaluation Lab. Through the lab, she conducted a program evaluation of PB&J Family Services, a local non-profit organization assisting low-income families with community services, and developed rubrics and surveys for use at the organization.
WORK EXPERIENCE
Currently, Jessica works at UNM as a Program Planning Officer for student success and is the inaugural UNM program Fellow for the University Innovation Alliance, a consortium of universities dedicated to increasing the number and diversity of college graduates in the United States. In her role, she has supported student success work, including the opening of a new Transfer & Transition Student Center on campus, development of various quantitative and qualitative assessment tools for units to evaluate progress, and promoting the expansion of Black Student Success programming through the Ubuntu Research Program.
Jessica also worked for 3 years as a Fiscal Analyst and Program Evaluator for the New Mexico Legislative Finance Committee where she gained invaluable legislative and policy experience. Starting as an intern and working her way into a full time position, Jessica demonstrated her knowledge of policy and evaluation to help secure state and federal funding and move the needle on various policy projects during the Covid-19 pandemic, such as statewide broadband, food security, and emergency rental assistance.
She plans to use these skills to shape real world outcomes and policies; She feels that this is very special because the impacts are measurable. Further, she hopes to expand her knowledge and experience with evaluation, policy analysis, and community outreach beyond her graduate program and is excited to put her skills to use by serving the greater Albuquerque community as a policy professional.