Prior to her position at UM she spent the past two years working with the Roman Catholic Mission in the Mayan community of San Lucas Tolimán, Guatemala. She is a Cuban-American Miami native that grew up on Key Biscayne. She received her Ph.D. in Systematic and Philosophical Theology at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California in 2001. Her research and teaching interests include Latino/a, Latin American, and Feminist Theologies, as well as inter-disciplinary work in Afro-Caribbean Studies. She is the author of Sor Juana: Beauty and Justice in the Americas (Orbis Books, 2003), Afro-Cuban Theology: Religion, Race, Culture and Identity (University Press of Florida, 2006), and Created in God's Image: An Introduction to Feminist Theological Anthropology (Orbis Books, 2007).