“We need to effectively communicate the problems and conditions, but also the solutions to public health professionals, community-based organizations, community members and policymakers.”
— Dr. Dawn Upchurch
STUDENTS IN THE FIELDING SCHOOL-BASED Reproductive Health Interest Group (RHIG) are gaining hands-on experience in research and advocacy while addressing an important public health concern on the UCLA campus: support for students, staff and faculty who are breastfeeding.
“Knowing how to advocate will enable students to ensure that individuals whose voices most need to be heard are represented.”
— Dr. Julie Elginer
Assessing the Effects of Sediment Augmentation on the Marsh Plain and Tidal Creeks at the Seal Beach Wetland
Department of the Interior Fish and Wildlife Service & Southwest Wetlands Interpretive Association, $151,678 for two years
Ron Brookmeyer Named Interim Dean
KATE CRESPI (MS ’91, PHD ’04) believes the most important quality for any academic in mentoring students is empathy. And as someone who trained in the Fielding School’s Department of Biostatistics before joining the department’s faculty, where she is now professor in residence, Crespi can easily identify with her students’ experiences.
Negar Omidakhsh (PhD ’17) hadn’t yet turned 2 when her parents brought her and her older brother to Canada as refugees. They had fled Iran in the aftermath of the 1979 Islamic Revolution — losing almost all of their money to smugglers in the process — so that Omidakhsh’s father could receive a university education. Growing up, Omidakhsh watched with admiration as her parents worked tirelessly to learn a new language and obtain college degrees.
WHILE WORKING AT THE BLACK AIDS INSTITUTE in Downtown Los Angeles, Rebekah Israel Cross heard from people who expressed a lack of interest in pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for HIV prevention despite being at greater risk of contracting HIV. Their reasoning, Cross explains, is PrEP would do nothing to address violence in their community and day-to-day lives or to eliminate systemic sources of oppression that hinder health and well-being.
OF THE 30 DEADLIEST MASS SHOOTINGS in the U.S. since 1949, the majority have occurred in the last decade. The horrific scenes are etched in our national psyche — from an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, a high school in Parkland, Florida, a church in Charleston, South Carolina, an outdoor concert in Las Vegas, and a nightclub in Orlando, Florida, among others.
FOR THE TEACHERS IN THE LOS ANGELES UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT elementary school classrooms that participate in Generation Xchange (GenX), the middle-age and older adults who spend at least 10 hours a week providing academic assistance and support to struggling students are a welcome addition, to say the least.