Mariana Acevedo Garcia immigrated to the United States at the age of four and currently attends Pomona College where she is pursuing a major in Molecular Biology. At college, she is a head mentor for IDEAS, a mentoring program for undocumented/DACAmented students and volunteers at the California Botanic Garden’s Herbarium. During the summer break of her sophomore year, she was able to volunteer at the Ivy Brain Tumor Research Center where she learned many lab techniques and was able to shadow every step of pre-clinical research for glioblastoma. In the future, she aspires to work in a similar lab or as a professor and plans to continue to mentor students in order to increase diversity and equity in STEM.