Her Story
About Karla
I started my journey in food safety as an undergraduate student when I took a food safety class as a freshman. My professor noticed I had really good grades and asked if I had ever considered going into food safety, offering me a position in his undergrad labs. I started working with him in his food microbiology lab, learning that side of food safety first. About a year later, I started as an intern at the health department, where I learned the health inspecting side of food safety. I just found that I love doing food safety - it was my passion. What drew me in was that it's something everyone does daily, which is eating, but it could also become very dangerous, and I wanted to help avoid that. I've been in the field since 2013, working my way up from intern to health inspector for 6 years, and now leading the health department at the University of Houston. In my current role, I work closely with dining operations, chefs, stadiums, athletics, and student organizations to strengthen food safety across our jurisdiction. I focus on building proactive, data-driven programs that don't just respond to risk, but anticipate it, prevent it, and protect the health and safety of those in our jurisdiction.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Karla
01What do you attribute your success to?
I would say probably the professors I was surrounded with and the individuals at the health department when I started out as an intern. I think it piqued my interest that it's something that everyone does daily, which is eating, could also become very dangerous, and so I wanted to avoid that. And thanks to those people, I learned.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best career advice I ever received was probably to be a sponge. I remember when I was an intern, someone at the time that worked there told me, you know, wherever you end up, whether you like it or not, just be a sponge, like, absorb everything. Absorb everything that you can, learn from others. Because you never know when you're going to use that knowledge later.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
To women specifically, I would say, I like to joke sometimes and say, like, uno reverse. It comes from the game Uno, where if someone hits you with a draw 4 card, you can hit them with the uno reverse and have them do it again. I think as women in the field, in general, I think in any field really, we deal with many more challenges than we should compared to our male peers. And so, I say to women, uno reverse - like, if someone treats you with the utmost respect and kindness and generosity, uno reverse times 10, you know, hit them with the same amount of respect and generosity. But if someone is just being sassy or maybe making your life a little more difficult, with a very classy way, you know, uno reverse. I think oftentimes we've been told as women to ignore people or just stay quiet and just ignore them, but I think we should treat people with the same medicine and just keep trying, because there will always be challenges, but keep uno reversing people.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
I think the biggest challenge in our field is having to tell people what they're doing wrong, which a lot of people don't take very well. As a health inspector, you have to tell people, like, oh, that's not the right way to cook that, or the right way to handle that. And people can get either offended or take it personal. So this job, really, you have to find a way to word things to all sorts of people and motivate them more than anything to do the right thing, instead of making them angrier and potentially causing harm or a hazard situation.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
I would say my biggest one is integrity. Doing the right thing always, even when no one's watching.
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