Maria is the Senior Community Policy Associate for the Collaborative Responses to Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children Initiative at the National Center for Youth Law (NCYL). In this role, Maria aims to ensure that state policy and practice to identify and serve youth impacted by CSE are driven by community and lived experience expertise. Prior to joining NCYL she worked as a Youth Advocate at WestCoast Children’s Clinic serving youth involved in Alameda County foster care and Juvenile Justice systems and used her lived experience to advocate with and for those youth. She obtained her B.A. in Political, Legal and Economic Analysis and Ethnic studies and Master's in Public Policy from Mills College.