from the president
yarielis perez-castillo, a fourth-year student at merrimack college, is a student leader active in civic and community engagement efforts in the underserved community of lawrence, massachusetts. she was part of the inaugural research team that co-designed a youth civic engagement program for middle school students in lawrence. this program was designed to combat gaps in young people’s academic, emotional, and social learning exacerbated during the covid-19 pandemic. for the last three years, she has worked closely with professors to understand civic engagement and social justice worldwide with students across different majors at merrimack college. she has concocted sophisticated engaged research to help young people in lawrence and worked as a language translator for the spanish-speaking community partners and young people involved in the youth voice program. in the future, yarielis is committed to leading efforts to reduce healthcare inequality, especially in her hometown of lawrence.
personal statement
i first became involved in community activism in high school by advocating for school id’s after the parkland school shooting. i worked with classmates, teachers, and principals to introduce my idea to state representatives at the massachusetts state house, causing the implementation of student id’s at my local high school. as my journey continued, i sought to help my local community further by becoming a program coordinator at merrimack college. this allowed me to collaborate with local libraries, schools, and nonprofits by promoting reading. i introduced local artists from my community to work with merrimack college to present their artwork to a larger audience. i also actively engage in the community with a merrimack professor to promote healthy lifestyles with children from 6 to 11 with their parents and create manuscripts for publishing. during this research, i was tasked with recruitment, data collection (e.g., 24-hour dietary recall), and data management.