Karla Ajoy

I earned a Bachelor of Engineering in Chemical Engineering in Ecuador and completed a Master of Environmental Health Sciences at the University of Arizona. My master’s project focused on metal and metalloid contamination in mangrove reserves in the Gulf of Guayaquil and its implications for public health. I am now a doctoral candidate in the same program and work as a research assistant in the One Health research lab. I was awarded the One Health Graduate Research Fellowship for two consecutive years (2024 and 2025). My main interests include community-engaged research, risk modeling, and environmental toxicology employing R and Python. I aim to contribute to environmental health policies in my home country and globally. In R4R, I look forward to learning how to analyze large, open-source environmental datasets to extract patterns that directly inform public and ecological health.