Hernan Colmenero was born where the river meets the ocean on the Texas-Mexico border. His work invokes a call to sit within our environment and listen. As the Founder and CEO of the Institute for Ecology, Scholarship, and Health, he helps firms design creative solutions to conceive, launch, and monitor sustainable bionomic initiatives. 

His clients include school districts, education service centers, universities, not-for-profit organizations, and private ranch owners looking to make a positive and lasting change in their environment and our future.  

In 2016 she became a member of the Brown Berets, San Antonio chapter of Carnalismo. Interned at LUPE, La Unión del Pueblo Entero 501-c non-profit organization founded by Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta in 2017, working various positions such as Civics Instructor, Adult Education Coordinator, and lastly as Community Organizer.

In 2018 she joined the McCain Institute, as an outreach specialist bringing awareness to human trafficking in agriculture. She traveled and visited farm workers in the North West Texas Panhandle, South West and South Texas, visiting over 72 counties in Texas and building relationships with H2A, Seasonal and Migrant Farmworkers, working in various industries.

In the year 2021, post-pandemic, she was part of a farmworker advocacy coalition that organized vaccine clinics prioritizing farm workers and their families directly on packing sheds and grower locations, and vaccinated over 2,000 farm workers in Hidalgo County. She organized and helped over 25 agricultural workers employed through Premier Produce packing shed recover thousands of dollars in unpaid wages.

In 2023, she was granted the opportunity to work with UTHealth, sub-contracted to aid in the one-time farm worker relief program, in which we helped over 3000 farm workers in a short period collect a one-time relief. The relief was processed and farm workers received this grant during the slowest season of the year, the hot summer, which helped their families get through the hardest time of the year when they struggle the most to put food on their tables and pay their bills. Through this grant, parents were able to ensure their children were prepared with clothes for school and many farm workers, H2A, migrant and seasonal workers received the message that Americans are advocating for the hard work they do to feed this country. This grant also boosted the economy during a period when the cost of living increased drastically and wages stayed stagnant.

In 2024 she had the honor of joining the Environmental and Society research group at UTRGV as a research assistant for the environment and Alford research group SEEMS. As a product of generations of farm workers, parents who met as migrants in the fields, and grandparents who came into this country through the braceros program, I have brought great honor to my family and have been blessed with the opportunity to return that respect and dignity back to them.