Valentina I. Maza
Graduate Researcher
Valentina Maza is a PhD student in Health Psychology at Rice University, where her research focuses on stress, caregiving, and the biological consequences of social and cultural experiences, particularly within Latino families.
She currently leads a mixed-methods project using data from the Migration Experiences Interview (MEI) to examine how autonomy and perceived control in the decision to migrate shape acculturation, acculturative stress, and health outcomes. Her work integrates qualitative coding with quantitative modeling to investigate how the migration context influences long-term adaptation and biological functioning.
In addition, Valentina contributes to projects on anticipatory grief and its physiological correlates among dementia caregivers, with a focus on inflammation and depression. She is especially interested in how these processes unfold across generations in immigrant families and how cultural context shapes responses to chronic caregiving stress and social loss.
This work aligns with her broader research goals of developing culturally grounded models of grief, stress, and inflammation in Latino immigrant communities. Her experience at the HEAL Lab has provided rich training in biobehavioral health research and mixed-methods approaches – tools that are shaping her thesis, dissertation, and future career as a culturally informed social scientist.
