Originally from western Montana, Dr. Barrera received her undergraduate degree from the University of Miami and her DVM degree from Colorado State University in 2006. She then completed a rotating internship at Animal Surgical and Emergency Center in Los Angeles, CA, followed by a surgical internship at Oregon State University. Dr. Barrera then returned to Colorado State University to complete a residency in small animal surgery in 2011, followed by a one-year fellowship in Surgical Oncology at Colorado State University’s Animal Cancer Center in 2012. Dr. Barrera has presented and published articles in the areas of endocrine and minimally-invasive surgery and loves showing how fun surgery can be to general practitioners, lecturing at conferences, and teaching surgery continuing education laboratories multiple times a year. Dr. Barrera enjoys all aspects of small animal surgery, with particular interests being surgical oncology, soft tissue and orthopedic minimally-invasive surgery, and endocrine surgery. Dr. Barrera is very excited to partner with her amazing technicians, Michaela and Megan, to bring specialty surgery to Raintree Animal Hospital.
Outside of veterinary medicine (and most importantly!), Dr. Barrera enjoys spending time with her husband John, daughter Rylee, cat Mango, and mountain mutt Lucy Goose. As a family, they love to travel, do road trips in their family camper van Huckleberry, hike, go backpacking, cook, and read.