My name is Christopher Cazares Robles or also known as simply Chris. I am an undergraduate student majoring in Cogntive Science at the University of California: Santa Cruz for the Class of 2026. My overall goal as an undergraduate student at UCSC is to build a solid foundation of knowledge and practical skills in the overall understanding of the brain's physiology and cognitive functions in connection to a person's health. I am especially interested in how the branches of emergency response, neuroscience, and public health all combine and function on a local and global scale which is why I am interested in the GCH field and for the reason why I am also drawn in pursuing an MD-PhD.
My interest in medicine and community health stems from my experience as a professional rescuer and from my own family and community. My family
My name is Christopher Cazares Robles, I am a undergraduate student majoring in Cogntive Science B.S at the University of California: Santa Cruz for the class of 2026. My overall goal as a student here to is to build a solid foundation of knowledge and skills in understanding the brain's overall physiology and cognitive functions in its connections to a person's health and wellness. I am especially interested in how the functions of emergency medicine, neuroscience, and public health all combine and function on a local and global scale which is why I am interested in the Global Community Health field at UCSC and for the reason why I am drawn to pursuing an MD-PhD.
My interest in medicine, and community health stems from my experience as a Lifeguard (EMR) and from my own family and community. My family originates from Jalisco, Mexico and immigrated in the early 2000s/late 90s in order to pursue a better life for themselves and future generations. As I grew up, I was primarily within low-income communities early on and while personally our family would always have enough, I was still able to have an exposure to many of the hardships that my community faced with health, whether it was through various diseases, drugs, or simply having no access to health care. On top of that, I had some out of the country exposure to the different hardships many faced with my own extended families, as I have had many members pass away due to the lack of resources, training, or other factors within the health care systems in Mexico. That is what brought my interest in helping others, and the reason why I began my work as a Lifeguard for the City of Oceanside. I was able to provide insight and preventative education to the communties (many low-income) about a variety of topics. With that, being fluent not only in English but also in Spanish allowed me to connect with even more people and groups within the communities and allowed me to recognize the imporantance of culture and identity that many carry with them.
As stated previously, my time at UCSC has been able to be used to build a foundation. This firstly began with my foundational knowledge through the different courses I have been able to take whether they were introductory courses or upper division courses within all fields relating such as biology, neuroscience, chemistry, math, social sciences, psychology, and much more. As well as hands on courses in general and organic chemistry labratories. I was able to use those foundamental skills and then will be able to apply these skills this upcoming quarter in the Cognitive Neuroscience Lab at UCSC where I will study attention and cogntive control using tools such as EEG.
Looking ahead, I want to begin with the near future. Apart from my time that I will spend as an undergraduate research assistant with the lab, I will begin my time as a Emergency Medical Technician where I will gain experience dealing with patients in the prehospital setting from a variety of emergencies and backgrounds. Far ahead, I plan to use all these skills and experiences in my pursuit of an MD-PhD and especially interested in careers as an Emergency Medicine physician, family physician or as a neurosurgeon. By intergrating these skills in medicine, research, neuroscience, and public health I hope to do my part in improving the health of my community on a local and global scale as much as possible.