Her Story
About Roxana
Roxana Fernandez is a behavior analyst and BCBA based in El Paso, Texas. With 10 years of experience in applied behavior analysis (ABA) and 4.5 years as a certified BCBA, she specializes in behavior reduction, skill acquisition, and functional community skills. Roxana holds a degree in special education and a master's degree in applied behavioral analysis. Her career path began with a passion for working with children, leading her from special education to pursuing advanced training to provide more in-depth support to children and families beyond the classroom setting. She is proud of obtaining her license in the field despite English being her second language and notes the limited number of Spanish-speaking BCBAs available to serve the community. Roxana attributes her success to her hard work and persistence, often working twice as hard to overcome language barriers. She values kindness, compassion, respect, integrity, continued growth through learning, and gratitude. In her professional life, she emphasizes the importance of believing in oneself and never giving up, as demonstrated by passing her licensing exam on the third attempt.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Roxana
01What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute my success to my hard work and persistence. Especially pursuing this license with English as my second language, I had to work twice as hard. It was the persistence and the hard work that I put in.
02What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
Believe in yourself and everything that you can do. Learn and grow, even though it's going to be really difficult. Just keep trying and don't give up. It took me about 3 trials to pass my license test because of the language barrier, but I never gave up. Just keep going back and study.
03What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
The biggest challenge is that there's not a lot of Spanish-speaking BCBAs out there. Sometimes it becomes a challenge to find help for all these people that need it and are able to talk to someone in Spanish. I can't help everyone, and when working at companies, having big caseloads because you're the only bilingual BCBA.
04What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Kindness, treating others with compassion and respect, integrity by being honest and acting according to what you have learned, growth through continued learning especially in this science-based field, and gratitude for appreciating everything and the opportunities I've had.
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