She has a joint appointment between the Department of Sociology and the Environmental Science and Policy Program. She holds a Ph.D. in Sociology and an M.S. in Environmental Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, an M.S. in Biostatistics from Emory University, and a Bachelor of Arts in Biology from Boston University. In 2014-2015 she completed postdoctoral training with the Social Science Environmental Health Research Institute (SSEHRI) at Northeastern University under the direction of Phil Brown. Dr. Carrera is part of the campus-wide Global Water Initiative. Her area of research focuses on environmental justice issues of access to clean water and sanitation in low-income communities domestically and internationally. Her work examines the role of power and exclusion in the production of marginalized spaces and bodies, using water as a surrogate for mapping power.