Amber Castro

Background

About Amber Castro

Amber Castro is a Los Angeles native and a first-generation Mexican-American. She travelled to central Pennsylvania to complete her undergraduate degree at Juniata College. Juniata College is a liberal arts college and was listed in Loren Pope’s "Colleges That Change Lives." Juniata emphasizes the importance of its students becoming global citizens and understanding the world that they live in. Amber graduated in 2017 with a dual degree B.A in International Studies and Spanish/Hispanic Studies. She has spent time abroad in China, Morocco, France, and a year abroad in Sevilla, Spain. For her final undergraduate year, she lived in Washington D.C, completing an Academic Internship semester as a Fellow at the United Macedonian Diaspora with The Washington Center as a Ford Motor Company Global Scholar recipient. She lived in Washington D.C. for a year as a Leadership intern for the Assistant Speaker of the House, Honorable Ben Ray Luján who has since become New Mexico's newest U.S. Senator. She was also a member of the Congressional Hispanic Staff Association (CHSA). Amber is currently pursuing a career change into the field of Evolutionary Biology/Astrobiology and is attending post-baccalaureate classes at Glendale Community College (GCC.) She recently accepted several work opportunities at GCC in Fall 2021 as a Marine Biology Teacher's Assistant, Biology Department Animal Caretaker, and a Biology Internship with the Natural History Museum under Dr. Jann Vendetti. She completed her time at GCC as a Summer Intensive Undergraduate Research Position in microbiology and molecular biology. Amber is now working for Carnegie Institute for Science in Pasadena, CA as a research laboratory technician. Her next steps are applying to 2024 PhD programs and focusing on research that elucidates how abiotic and biotic variables contribute to the evolution of life and how life may evolve outside of our planet.