María Isabel Huerta-Cervantes received her BA in Architecture from Princeton University, where she also minored in French Language and Culture. Upon graduation, she returned to her native Southern California as a college counselor for Bright Prospect, a college access organization that enables first-generation, low-income students to gain admission to and graduate from college. Her passion for architecture, education, and counseling led her to the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc), where she was most recently Assistant Director of Admissions. In addition to working with undergraduate and graduate applicants, María was the staff coordinator helping launch the school’s Academic Outreach Initiatives, or POP-Arcs, which introduce high school students to architectural thinking and design methods and offers them an opportunity to explore careers in architecture and design. Furthering her commitment to exposing students from historically underrepresented backgrounds to educational opportunities, María serves as a mentor for the Riordan College to Career Program and volunteers as a Princeton interviewer. She chairs the Princeton Alumni Schools Committee’s Inland Empire Region since 2018. María is currently an Ed.M. candidate in the Higher Education program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.