2024–2025 NHLCC Scholar: Carlos E.E. Araujo Menendez

Carlos E.E. Araujo Menendez
PhD Candidate
San Diego State University, University of California San Diego

Carlos Araujo Menendez received his B.S. in Psychology from UCSD in 2018 and is currently a student in the SDSU/UC San Diego Joint Doctoral Program in Clinical Psychology with an emphasis in neuropsychology. He is a first-generation student who moved from Peru to the U.S. at the age of 14 and will be the first one in his family to obtain a PhD. He is closely familiar with the impact of limited access to healthcare that the Hispanic/Latino community faces when seeking care. Like many other Hispanics/Latinos in the U.S., his dad was unable to obtain the medical care he needed when he became chronically ill due to unfamiliarity with the American healthcare system and lack of providers who spoke Spanish. Because of his personal experience, Carlos has pursued an education with an eye toward a career focused on health disparity research. As a future clinical scientist, Carlos strives to serve the Hispanic/Latino community through his research and by becoming a bilingual, culturally competent clinician. To date, his research has broadly focused on the combined roles of psychosocial and health factors (e.g., language, acculturation, cardiovascular disease risk factors, reproductive health) on Alzheimer’s disease risk and brain health in the Hispanic/Latino community. His dissertation will focus on how blood pressure and reproductive health factors may differentially predict cognitive trajectories in Hispanic/Latino men and women. His work has also examined language bias in commonly used clinical assessments amongst the U.S. Hispanic/Latino community, as well as how to adapt assessments for use in rural populations in Peru. As an NHLCC scholar, Carlos hopes to continue to better understand the factors contributing to the high prevalence and burden of cardiovascular disease and Alzheimer's disease in the Hispanic/Latino community.