Current Funding
I currently have funding for several projects (see CV). I am PI of a Multi-Research Program and Initiative Grant from the UC Office of the President. This project, Toxic Air Pollutants in California Environmental Justice Communities, works to deploy novel air quality instruments in frontline and fenceline EJ communities across California. The Community Air Project is a multi-campus and community partner research project with collaborators at UC Davis (PI Clare Cannon), UC Irvine (co-PI Mike Méndez), UC San Diego (co-PI Camila Alvarez), and the UC Davis Air Quality Research Center (co-PI Tony Wexler). The goal of this project is to collaborate with communities to develop and deploy novel, low-cost air quality monitors to measure the two major kinds of hazardous air pollutants (HAPs), metallic compounds (MC) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in real time. These HAPs have been linked to a range of adverse health outcomes. Our approach is a community engaged one in which our community partners serve as collaborators throughout the research process from conceptualization, data collection through dissemination of findings. Finally, a novel contribution of this project is the use of these new instruments in communities with high environmental injustice across California.
Past Funding
My project, “Addressing environmental health concerns of community residents of Kettleman City, CA: A community-based approach to examining exposure and assessing community health”, is funded by a pilot grant from the UC Davis Environmental Health Sciences Center (2018-2021; $60,000). This project is community-driven research into intersections of environmental injustice and health in the predominantly-Spanish speaking, agricultural town in California's Central Valley that hosts one of two operating class I hazardous waste landfill. In this project, working with community partners and scientists from UCD, we collected and analyzed air quality, water quality, and biological sampling to identify potential routes of exposure. Supplementary funding was received from the UC Davis Center for Regional Change ($2,000) and the Feminist Research Institute ($10,000). These partnerships and data are supporting R-01 applications to the NIH. For additional research products from this project including peer-reviewed journal articles, policy briefs, community fact sheets and presentations please see the Research and CV tabs.
I have received passed funding, with the Center for Regional Change and the Center for Community and Citizen Science, to promote environmental education, stewardship, and useful data through community and citizen science in Lake County as part of efforts on behalf of the Blue-Ribbon Committee for the Rehabilitation of Clear Lake (AB 707) with funding from the California Natural Resources Agency ($470,000; 2022-2024).
I have received past funding from the National Science Foundation for my dissertation research, “Unequal Exposure to Environmental Hazards: Analyzing the Location and Distribution of Landfills in the Contiguous United States” (Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant–Sociology Program; 2016-2018; $11,999; #1602813). I received supplementary funding from the School of Liberal Arts Merit Fellowship from Tulane University ($2,500). For additional research products from this project including peer-reviewed journal articles, policy briefs, community fact sheets and presentations please see the Research and CV tabs.
Fellowships
Chancellor's Fellowship for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (2020-2021)
Public Scholarship Faculty Fellowship, UC Davis Office of Public Scholarship and Engagement (2020-2021)
ACCELERATE Faculty Fellowship, Center for Educational Effectiveness, UC Davis (2021)
Health Disparities Research Institute Scholar, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland (2019)
Global Curriculum Enhancement, Global Affairs, UC Davis (2018-2019)
Engaged Learning & Teaching Community Fellowship, Center for Educational Effectiveness, UC Davis (2018)
Awards
Early Career Award, International Association for Research on Service-Learning and Community Engagement (IARSLCE), 2021
Honorable Mention, The Section on Environment and Technology Marvin E. Olsen Student Paper Award, American Sociological Association, 2016
Shelley Coverman Memorial Award from the Newcomb College Institute, Tulane University, 2015
Hoffman Award for Excellence in the study of German Language, Hunter College, 2012
Edward A. White Award for excellence in American Studies, Claremont Colleges, 2008
Fulbright Honorable Mention, Southeast Asia, 2008