Christina received her PhD from the Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the Ohio State University; she studied gender and development while working toward her M.St. in Women's Studies at Oxford University. Currently, her research focuses on ecological themes in the work of Chicana artists, activists, and scholars. In 2013 Christina was recognized with the National Women’s Studies Association/University of Illinois Press First Book Prize for her manuscript Chicana Environmentalisms: Decolonizing the Body, Nature, and Spirit, which is now under review at the press.