Gabriela I. Noles Cotito is a first year Ph.D. student and Benjamin Franklin Fellow of Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. She received her Doctor of Medicine from the Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia and her Master’s in Public Health from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
She is from Lima, Peru, and prior to starting her studies at Penn, she worked as an expert consultant in ethnicity and health focusing on Afro-Latin Americans at the Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO/WHO) where she drafted health strategies for Afro-Latin Americans and Afro-Latin American youth. She also designed and supported health initiatives for Afro-Peruvians for the Peruvian Ministry of Culture and Ministry of Health. Additionally, she is a social entrepreneur working in women’s empowerment and sexual and reproductive health with adolescents in a historically black rural community in Peru where she holds a pro bono medical practice.
Her research interests include the health status of Afro-Latin Americans, race and ethnicity as a barrier to health access for the Afro-Diasporic population in indigenous countries and intercultural health policies in this context.