Dayanara Flores is a senior at the University of California, Berkeley studying Public Health.

As a Lucheta Vaterlaus Scholar, she designed and conducted a qualitative study on language brokering among Mexican American adolescent females, examining the emotional labor and family dynamics involved in interpreting for parents. Through interviews and thematic analysis, she found that children translating for their parents must first absorb information, then decide how best to communicate it. This emotional labor was universal across medical, academic, and financial contexts, showing that translation involves conveying meaning, not just words. These findings, combined with her own experiences, revealed that barriers in medicine are not solely linguistic but also cultural. They strengthened her commitment to creating spaces where patients can share their experiences fully and navigate care in ways that are both accessible and meaningful.

As an L&E Fellow, she conducted a mixed-methods study examining how economic pressures and workplace policies shape the wellbeing of Hispanic women working in packing sheds during periods of extreme heat. While participants consistently reported fatigue, thirst, headaches, and physical strain, they often framed these experiences as unavoidable (“se puede aguantar” or “no hay de otra”). She found that this normalization of heat-related discomfort reflected not physiological adaptation, but a socially conditioned response shaped by economic necessity, workplace expectations, and job insecurity. This research reinforced her commitment to addressing health inequities through community-engaged research and structural public health interventions.

Working under Dr. Carly Hyland, Dayanara is currently supporting a heat intervention study with agricultural workers in the San Joaquin Valley.