Celeste Fernandez

Biography

Celeste Fernandez is a fourth-year doctoral student in the Department of Human Development and Family Sciences at the University of Texas at Austin and is currently developing her doctoral dissertation under the mentorship of Dr. Aprile Benner. Celeste’s research interests center on the contextual influences of adolescent development. Using a developmental perspective, she is particularly focused on investigating how marginalization and the interpersonal interactions that occur in and outside of school influence the academic engagement and achievement of minority adolescents under-represented in higher education. Another stream of her work focuses on examining the concurrent and longitudinal impact life stressors, including marginalization, have on adolescents’ mental and physical health. With these interest in mind, Celeste aims to produce research that addresses the role of race and income related marginalization in producing disparities in education and well-being and expand the lens of research on intersectionality between race/ethnicity and SES to better understand how the overlap between these two identities impacts perceptions of marginalization and discrimination.