Maya Contreras

Year Entered Program

2018

Biography 

Maya Contreras is a PhD student at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Her research interests include environmental sociology, environmental justice, political economy, environmental governance, and racial/ethnic inequalities. Using qualitative methods, her Master’s thesis focused on the ways power and inequality shape environmental justice policy implementation. 

Maya received her BA from UC Santa Cruz where she worked as a fellow in the Everett Program for Technology and Social Change, a program that empowers students with technical skills to support and collaborate with social justice-oriented organizations. For her capstone project, she worked with a mobile TB/HIV Care clinic treating street-level drug users in Durban, South Africa.