Ambar Castillo
REPORTING FELLOW
Ambar Castillo is a Brooklyn-born, Queens-raised writer, actor, and student advisor with a B.A. in Latin American Studies/Journalism from Boston University—and our 2017 LaGuardia Community College Student Fellow.
She formerly created performance-based teacher trainings and multimedia materials on health and safety with NYC's largest charter school organization, Success Academies. Previously, Ambar worked on creative curriculum on such topics as nutrition and journalism as an Urban Teacher Residency high school special education resident and with Citizen Schools, Harlem Children's Zone, Women for Afghan Women, New York Cares/Jacob Riis Senior Center, and AmeriCorps-Urban Health Plan, Inc.
Her writing has been featured in LaGuardia (LGCC) arts magazine The Lit and Boston University translation publication Pusteblume. Ambar's research on merging culturally relevant theatre and nutrition initiatives to address health disparities earned an award in the 2017 LGCC Research Review Competition, was showcased at the 2016 LGCC Honors Research Symposium and 2017 LGCC Honors Research Conference, and was published in the 2017 LGCC Honors Journal. Her research on the role of arts programming in increasing college retention rates among at-risk youth won the 2017 LGCC Urban Studies Writing Contest.
Like her research, Ambar's plays cover gender/sexuality, health, and immigrant issues. "Walking Around" garnered First Place for Drama in the LGCC Creative Writing Contest and has received dramatic readings with InViolet Theatre and at the LGCC LatinX and Creative Writing symposiums. Her play adaptation "The Real Food" received a staged reading at the 2017 LGCC Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Conference.