Jesica Siham Fernández is an Assistant Professor in the Ethnic Studies Department at Santa Clara University. She received her PhD in Social Psychology and Latin American & Latinx Studies from the University of California, Santa Cruz. She engages in community-based and participatory action research (PAR) paradigms, projects and collaborations to support young people, Latinx, community organizers, and student activists in their sociopolitical development and well-being at the intersections of environmental and racial justice. Trained as a community-social psychologist, Jesica’s research is grounded in principles of sustainability, liberation, and decolonial feminist praxis. She is the author of Growing Up Latinx: Coming of Age in a Time of Contested Citizenship (New York University Press, 2021), which received the Outstanding Scholarly Contribution Award of the Section on Children and Youth, given by the American Sociological Association in 2022. Guided by her prior experiences as a youth organizer, she facilitates and oversees the Youth for Justice Project – an afterschool program at a local middle school in San José where in collaboration with SCU undergraduates, she engages youth in arts and advocacy action-oriented projects that are informed by critical race and ethnic studies, as well as environmental justice and sustainability. She is currently working on an edited book volume Decolonial Community Psychology Praxes with colleagues Sunil Bhatia (Connecticut College, USA) and Christopher Sonn (Victoria University, Australia). The handbook will highlight Indigenous, feminist, and youth-driven grassroots art-centered actions, as well as intergenerational and transnational voices to uplift communities and practitioners leading movements for liberation rooted in transformative justice, relational solidarities, as well as environmental health and climate action. In recognition of her scholarship, the Society for Community Research & Action (SCRA, APA Division 27) named Jesica the recipient of the 2023 Early Career Award.