Sigrid (Karina) Madrigal

Sigrid (Karina) Madrigal has a diverse and international professional background. Her career upbringing is in the field of Psychology, which she considers to be her passion. She started her postsecondary studies in her home country, Costa Rica, at the Universidad de Costa Rica (UCR) where she broadened up her knowledge in Psychology pursuing courses in Public Administration and Sociology. Moreover, she earned her B.A. in Psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

As a team member of the Healthy African American Families (HAAF), Karina dedicates her career to Psychosocial research in which her main role is of Research Coordinator. Currently, she is part of three main projects, 1) Community Child Health Network (CCHN) which is a National study funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) that seeks to gain new insights into the reasons for the disparities in maternal health and child development. Karina assists as a bilingual research interviewer, interviewing most of the Spanish Speaking population of Los Angeles. 2) Secondly, she is part of The Community Partners in Care (CPIC) which is a collaborative research project of community and academic partners working together to learn the best way to reduce the burden that depression places on our communities and other vulnerable populations. Karina’s role in this project has been as a case manager who provides education and support to those who deal with depression. She has also lead Resiliency Classes, which emphasis is to help our community partners with depression to focus on their strengths and gain tools to better face daily circumstances, stress and depression.  3) She is also the Project Coordinator of a Fatherhood substudy from the CCHN that tries to understand fathers’ perceptions, barriers, and incentives/"wins" for participating in research around the impact of maternal stress on child health and development in the perinatal period. 

Karina is committed and dedicated to comply with HAAF’s mission statement to improve the health outcomes of the African American, Latino and Korean communities, as she strongly believes in the work that is done at Healthy African American Families and that we all have the right to live an optimal life.