Yvette is a first-generation college graduate who was raised in the Mission District of San Francisco by her working-class Mexican parents. At Harvard College, she majored in sociology, studied abroad in Namibia and South Africa, and obtained her middle school teacher license. After graduation, she spent three years volunteering throughout Latin America in a migrant shelter, a home for vulnerable children, and various education nonprofit organizations. In the United States, she has worked on early childhood research at Stanford University, and asmanager of a nonprofit organization that supports youth in San Francisco's foster care and juvenile justice systems. This past summer, she interned with the International Planned Parenthood Federation - Western Hemisphere Region. Yvette plans on using her MPA degree to focus on education and child welfare in Latin American countries. She is especially interested in the development of foster care programs, which is an area she previously studied in Ecuador.