Cristina Fernandez is an Environmental Engineer by training, broadly interested in water quality, agriculture, and energy issues. She received her B.S. and M.S. from the University of Iowa. Afterwards, she became an AmeriCorps member and worked with communities to implement energy-efficient practices in homes and businesses and weatherized homes for elderly, disabled, and low-income families. At Cornell, she studied microbial communities involved in greenhouse gas cycling, specifically focusing on methane emissions from wastewater treatment. She was also involved in water quality research, quantifying fecal indicator bacteria in recreational waters and harmful algal blooms in the Finger Lakes. As a postdoctoral researcher at the USDA Agricultural Research Service, Cristina studied arsenic uptake in rice, from soil microbes to plant genetics, to reduce arsenic exposure from rice consumption.