Marissa is a current MSW candidate at Columbia School of Social Work, pursuing a Social Enterprise Administration track. Her current field placement is at the SAFElab, led by Dr. Desmond Patton. At the SAFELab, she has coordinated and built curriculum for the 2022 UXR Lab, where previously incarcerated individuals learn about user research and design, coding, computer science, and content creation. She is also a fellow for the Columbia World Grief Project, which studies the online expression of emotions in the Harlem community that occur in reaction to triggering events.
A native California, in 2019, she graduated from University of California, Berkeley with a BA in Political Economy. She has dedicated three years to advocacy work with the non-profits Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) and Housing Works, in addition to teaching English in low income elementary schools in both the United States and France.
These domestic and international experiences solidified her passion to explore social work on a global scale. After graduating, she aims to continue her research in order to implement mental health interventions for those suffering from complex trauma, crises, and bereavement, as well as extend her passion for advocacy to online platforms.