Bio
Where it Began
Dr. Minero (She/Ella) was only 5 years young when she immigrated to the United States from her home country, Mexico. Her parent’s brave and selfless decision to immigrate to a new country and leave everyone and everything they knew, has influenced her passion to seek justice and liberation for those implicated by racist, heterosexist, cissexist, classist and related injustices. Growing up as a queer, undocumented, Latinx and gender expansive muXer of color, she has witnessed firsthand how systemic and structural discrimination and violence impedes the wellbeing of diverse communities. She has dedicated her life-affirming work to abolishing detention and systems that adversely impact undocumented, queer, trans, immigrant, communities of color and seeks to build a community centered on healing, love, and liberation.
Dr. Minero co-founded the first university organization for undocumented students in Wisconsin, DREAMERS of UW-Madison which later grew into the first state-level organization in Wisconsin for undocumented students. Dr. Minero has been featured on Fusion for her advocacy related to campus sanctuaries having co-written one of the first campus sanctuary petitions to be circulated nationwide by-which various other petitions were modeled after 45th was elected President. Dr. Minero has actively participated in city council meetings providing testimonies for city ordinances, engages with her senators and congress members advocating for a comprehensive, humane and inclusive immigration reform and has taken several advocacy trips to Washington D.C. to fight for various immigration relief policies alongside United We Dream and the American Psychological Association.
In addition to community organizing, Dr. Minero has received distinguished academic, clinical, and research training. She earned her PhD in Counseling Psychology from University of Wisconsin-Madison in August of 2020. She contributed to scientific studies used to inform national policy as a 2019 Christine Mirzayan Science Policy and Technology Fellow with the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Her research with undocumented and asylum-seeking transgender immigrants and the intersections of transphobia, racism, and state-sanctioned violence was supported by Ford Predoctoral and Dissertation Fellowships and subsequent dissertation awards via the Association for Hispanics in Higher Education and the National Latinx Psychological Association. Dr. Minero presently provides bilingual/bicultural, trauma-informed, affirming, and evidenced-based mental health services and trains other Los Angeles County professionals as a LGBTQ Youth Trauma, Resilience and Community Education Post-Doctoral Fellow at UCLA’s Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior.
More broadly, Dr. Minero specializes in working with LGBTQ2-S+, Latinx, Spanish-speaking and undocumented populations in clinical, advocacy, supervisory, consultation and teaching settings. As a social justice researcher, Dr. Minero examines how policy impacts the lived experiences of undocumented immigrant and LGBTQ+ communities to identify how to better-serve these populations through more inclusive implementation of policy and distribution of services. She has given numerous keynote speeches, trainings and serves as a consultant for broad audiences nationwide including non-profits, k-12 and higher education professionals, community organizations, researchers, mental health and government professionals on the provision of trauma-informed, LGBTQ+ affirming care, and transforming leadership with special emphasis on anti-racist, intersectional and liberation frameworks.