(El Centro Native following her passion)....Jezella Peraza is a 2017 graduate of Southwest High School in El Centro.

She received a scholarship from California State University in Monterey. She went on to earn her Master's degree in Marine Biology at the University of Washington. She is currently a Washington Sea Grant fellow at the Seattle Aquarium. This month Jezella is in Brisbane, Australia, attending the International Congress for Conservation Biology. She is representing the Seattle Aquarium and sharing her recent research on Pinto Abalone, an endangered marine snail found along the Pacific Northwest Coast. At the Aquarium she supports a conservation effort that focuses on breeding and raising baby abalone in nurseries, then releasing them into the wild, such as the San Juan Islands. At the conference, Jezella is talking about her species recovery work and how she engages with community members to amplify their perspective in shaping and strengthening the Pinto Abalone recovery project.