Drawn to communicate science.
Christina earned a BFA in Illustration and a Medical Illustration Certificate from California State University of Long Beach. While completing post-baccalaureate science courses she continued work as a graphic designer and illustrator. She worked prosecting for while overseeing a supplemental anatomy course, and in conjunction with her colleague, published a prosection manual for the university to guide student learning.
Christina earned her MS in Medical Illustration from Augusta University. While there she earned; a Vesalius Trust Research Grant for her thesis that focused on instructional design and 3D interactive modeling, an Award of Merit from the Association of Medical Illustrators Annual Student Salon for a patient education piece, an Award of Excellence and the William J. Stenstrom Award of Excellence from the AU/UGA Scientific and Medical Illustration Exhibition, and the Graduate School Educational Multimedia Poster Award in the Graduate Research Day held at Augusta University.
After graduate school, she moved back to the west coast to begin working at a new medical school that strives to support the community through creating doctors in an underserved minority area. While there, the university accepted their inaugural medical program cohorts which allowed her insight into start up culture and accreditation processes. She contributed to instructional infrastructure, instructional training and created resources to support student learning and university initiatives and research. She worked with administration, teaching, and clinical faculty to develop their instructional delivery and methods. She lectured in the medical school curriculum every semester as well as the MBS program’s anatomy course for one semester. While working as the Manager of Instructional Resources, she worked on initiatives to support university outcomes such as medical education, low health literacy, and patient education initiatives, and constructed an internship that mentored instructional designers and medical illustrators to elevate their professional insights into the field and build their portfolio.
She currently works as an medical illustrator where she designs and implements VR surgical training modules to improve quality and accessibility of surgical education. She works with clients (surgeons, medical device companies) and internal team (art, UI/UX, engineering, client services, surgeons) to develop modules used in the assessment of surgical competencies.
Christina frequently contributes to material for research publications and medical device education. She continually mentors others that are interested in the field and is serving as portfolio chair for the Board of Certified Medical Illustrators. She is a certified medical illustrator that strives to transform complex medical content into outcome oriented educational material to improve student, physician, educator and patient learning.