Lauren (she/her) is a cisgender, white woman who is a wife, parent of two young children, sister, daughter, auntie and friend. She was born and raised near the Blue Hills area on Massachusett and Pawtucket land into a family that has direct ties to English colonizers who stole land and enslaved Black and Indigenous people. Other parts of her ancestry include immigrants from Ireland, French Canada and Ukraine. Her parents are both academic researchers and she personally and professionally benefitted in many ways from the resources they could provide and from their career modeling. She currently lives on Tongva/Gabrielino land near the San Gabriel Valley/Mission in Southern California. She has a doctoral degree in Health Behavior Research and works at the Office for Health Promotion Strategy at the University of Southern California. She aspires to use her position and privilege to participate in creating a beautiful and just future.
![Lauren Martinez](https://assets.swoogo.com/uploads/full/3521324-65c3cfd83f13a.jpg)