Hispanic Heritage Month: Interview with Gabriela Gallegos

Published: October 1, 2021

In celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month, we recently sat down with Gabriela Gallegos, JD, MPP, Associate Professor of Management, Policy and Community Health at the UTHealth School of Public Health in El Paso to learn more about how growing up and working in a predominantly Hispanic community has shaped her career path. Gallegos is a member of our Center’s Research-to-Policy Collaboration Project (TX RPC). She is also a member of the UTHealth Center for Community Health Impact whose focus is reducing the community’s burden of chronic diseases such as obesity and diabetes. In addition to her work as an attorney, mediator, policy consultant, and researcher, Gallegos is also the first and only Latina on the USA Triathlon board, as well as president and race director for Race El Paso.  Gallegos grew up in El Paso and San Antonio, and then went on to study public policy and law at the University of Michigan and UC Berkeley, respectively. After working  for Vinson & Elkins LLP in Dallas, Gallegos is back in El Paso, working in the city she has always considered home and helping shift the community culture towards healthier habits.