PolicyLab

Maria Christina Herrera is a faculty member at PolicyLab and an attending physician in the Division of Adolescent Medicine at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). Dr. Herrera joined the Division after completing her adolescent medicine fellowship at CHOP and pursuing a Master of Science in Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania. She is currently funded by a National Institute on Drug Abuse K12 through Yale titled, Drug Use, Addiction and HIV prevention Research Scholars (DAHRS). Her present research focus addresses the intersection of the HIV and substance use epidemics for adolescents and young adults. She is particularly interested in optimizing access to HIV prevention initiatives for historically marginalized and disenfranchised young people with substance use. 

Dr. Herrera contributed to health care provision and public health efforts during her domestic training in New York City, San Francisco and with the Indian Health Service on the White Mountain Apache Reservation in Whiteriver, Ariz. She has also worked both clinically and in a research capacity globally in the Dominican Republic, Peru and Mexico, all of which served to deepen her commitment to health equity and poverty alleviation.

Originally from a small rural town in upstate New York, Dr. Herrera completed her undergraduate education with a Bachelor of Arts out of the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at Columbia University. She received her medical degree from Columbia University prior to completing her residency in the pediatrics PLUS program at the University of California, San Francisco, which trains pediatricians to advance health equity through community engagement and legislative advocacy.