Carmen is an Analyst at the U.S. Government Accountability Office, where she is currently in a two-year rotation program that enables her to work on three different mission teams. Her work puts her at the nexus of policy, management, and science, working on a range of topics from natural resource management to acquisition management. 

Previously, she served as Ocean Conservancy’s Manager of Science Information, where she focused on developing the scientific content and 
credibility for the organization's 
programs by analyzing, synthesizing, and
 communicating information in support of
 the organization’s policy and advocacy 
efforts. Her work included mitigating future impacts from increased Arctic shipping and restoring the Gulf of Mexico. Additionally, Carmen initiated Ocean Conservancy's Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Strategic Plan, which incorporated the richness of human diversity into the organization’s efforts to guide policy and engage people in protecting the ocean. While working at the San Francisco Department of the Environment as the Alternative Transportation Coordinator, Carmen drafted San Francisco's first city ordinance requiring employers with 10 or more employees to offer pre-tax commuter benefits in an effort to promote public transit usage and mitigate traffic congestion. 

At Duke University, Carmen built a geographic information system (GIS) tool to develop impact scenarios of San Francisco’s potential wave energy project, and wrote a policy paper to guide the City and County of San Francisco in better understanding the federal regulations regarding wave energy. Carmen is also a Fellow at the Environmental Leadership Program.