Christina grew up in Rio Rancho, New Mexico. She discovered wheelchair basketball in the 8th grade and played on the local youth team, the “Zia Hotshots”. It was through her involvement with adaptive sports that she met the EAPP founder, Toña Rivera. 

After high schoool, Christina was recruited by the University of Alabama to play on their collegiate women’s wheelchair basketball team. During her time at the University of Alabama, Christina helped the Crimson Tide ( “Roll Tide, roll!” ) bring home their first two wheelchair basketball national championships in 2009 and 2010 and was a co-captain of the women’s wheelchair basketball team during her senior year. Christina earned her Bachelor’s Degree in both Psychology and Biology and graduated with honors in 2010. 

Christina was accepted to the University of New Mexico School of Medicine in 2012, and earned her M.D. in 2016. She completed her residency training in Pediatrics at Arkansas Children’s Hospital in 2019. 

Her and her husband moved to Shiprock, N.M. in 2019, and they both currently work as General Pediatricians on the Navajo Nation. Christina has a special interest in complex medical care, and along with her duties as a pediatrician, became a Board Member for EAPP in 2020. 

Christina is a Certified Adaptive Suba Diver, loves board games, card games of all kinds, audiobooks, HGTV, Reese’s peanut butter cups, and can, on occasion, be found fly fishing with her husband on the San Juan river. 

“As a pediatrician and an individual with Cerebral Palsy, I understand that meeting people’s social needs is just as important as meeting their medical needs, and I hope that through EAPP, more children with disabilities will be able to participate in play, and reap the many physical and social benefits play has to offer!”