Public Scholarship and Community Engagement

As a faculty member of a public university, I am committed to applied research to improve the lives of residents across California, the US, and globally. To this end, I use community-engaged research approaches, such as community based participatory action research, to partner with communities on study design, data collection and analysis, and sharing out our findings. 

EJ and Environmental Health in California's Central Valley

One such research project, funded by the UCD Environmental Health Sciences Center and the Feminist Research Institute, and Center for Regional Change, investigated 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. From this study, we have produced the following helpful resources for residents, regulators and policymakers, and academics;

• Policy Brief
• Community fact sheet
• Peer review journal article on transdisciplinary community-engaged research
• Documentary featured at APHA

Advancing Evidence-based Practice in IPV Treatment

Another dimension of my research program is to study the links and disconnections between research and practice to improve practitioner uptake of research-supported or evidence-based practice. More recently, in my applied research, I investigate barriers to evidence-based practice for batterer intervention programs, the most common treatment approach to intimate partner violence abusers.

• Hamel, J., Cannon, C. E., & Graham-Kevan, N. (2023). The consequences of psychological abuse and control in intimate partner relationships. Traumatology.
• Murray, K., Cannon, C. E., Ching, C. C., & Trexler, C. J. (2023). LGBTQ access to generalized youth development programs. Journal of Agricultural Education, 64(4).

Community Development

A third dimension of my applied research and outreach activities have also extended to community development work and research in Lake County as the acting and managing PI (2019-2020) for a contract with California Fish and Wildlife ($495,007), while serving as the co-PI for the Tribal Engagement portion of the project (2018-2021). One of the purposes of this contract is to work with the Blue-Ribbon Committee for the Rehabilitation of Clear Lake (AB 707) to develop a baseline socio-economic analysis and community and tribal engagement around strategies to improve community vitality of the Clear Lake region (located in Lake County). The Clear Lake area continues to be one of the most disadvantaged areas in the state with high rates of opioid use. I have co-developed presentations of this work into community economic development and tribal engagement to the Blue-Ribbon Committee and tribal partners in the Clear Lake Region and to the Lake County Economic Development Board. I have also assisted in the creation of and serve on the Socio-economic Subcommittee in order to better facilitate this work and its public outreach and community engagement. 

• Five Core Areas to Support and Promote Recovery to Natural Disasters: Insights from Tribal Communities in the Clear Lake Region
• Promising Practices for Rural Economic Development After Disasters in Lake County, California

A second phase of this work was carried out from 2022-2024, funded by California Natural Resources ($470,000), with the Center for Regional Change and partners at the UC Davis Center for Community and Citizen Science. Through our project, Caring for Clear Lake, we developed environmental education materials with Tribal and local, community partners to advance restoration, rehabilitation, sustainability, and educational goals for Clear Lake communities.