Maribel Sandoval Contreras is a first-generation PhD student in the Urban and Environmental Planning and Policy program at the University of California Irvine. She received a BA in Spanish and environmental studies from the University of California Santa Barbara as well as a master's in urban planning from California State University Northridge. She is originally from Puebla, Mexico, and immigrated to the U.S. at the age of 12 and was raised in the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles, California. Her research focuses on how extreme heat affects undocumented immigrants in urban regions.