Born and raised in Miami, Cristina's work always revolved around local libraries, museums and special collections. But it was a rare job as an archivist at the Lynn and Louis Wolfson II Florida Moving Image Archive of Miami Dade College that officially introduced her to the world of audiovisual preservation. (Though, truth be told, there were inadvertent lessons as a very young age when discovering the cons of pulling tape out of a compact cassette.) After three years there, she pursued a Master's Degree in Library Science at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign while working simultaneously in the Media Preservation Unit (located in the Preservation department) as a graduate assistant. As of 2017, she works as Project Manager of said unit, where she manages daily operations and, happily, is surrounded by everything audiovisual.