Gabino Junior Abarca majored in Public Health. He joined the program in June 2016 under the mentorship of Dr. June Spector, Assistant Professor in Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences. Inspired by the work experiences of his parents and himself harvesting fruit, Gabino’s research during his first year with SURE-EH investigated the association between heat exposure, volume/hydration status and kidney injury using data collected from orchard workers in Eastern Washington state.
His research during his second year focused on “The Effect of Body Heat on Personal Ambient Air Temperature Measurements During Physical Activity”.
Gabino became a UW McNair Scholar and received the “Exceptional Student Award” at the Washington State Public Health Association's Annual Conference in October 2017. He graduated in the Spring of 2018 and entered the MPH program in the Department of Health Services at the University of Washington in Fall 2018. He is currently pursuing his PhD at the Fielding School of Public Health at UCLA.
Jannah Amaly majored in Public Health. She joined SURE-EH in June 2017 under the mentorship of Dr. Vanessa Galaviz, Lecturer in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences and Director of Community Engagement and Education for the PNASH Center. Jannah's research focused on working with Columbia Valley Community Health to develop a 'voting board' to measure the needs of migrant workers in Wenatchee. Voting results identified specific areas of health/safety need that were in need of further education and/or research.
Jannah completed the program in Spring 2019 and currently works as a Population Health Coordinator in the Greater Seattle Area.
Arthur Aquilar is majoring in Public Health. He joined SURE-EH in June 2017 under the mentorship of Dr. Vanessa Galaviz, Lecturer in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences and Director of Community Engagement and Education for the PNASH Center. Art’s research project “Transcending Barriers: How migrant student engagement can benefit agricultural health and safety” seeks to strengthen farm worker knowledge about occupational exposures and risks, with specific emphasis on pesticides, by engaging and educating children of farm workers. Engaging migrant children in the form of an interactive class activity would allow them to walk away with increased understanding, thus, translational capacity to improve awareness for their families.
Art completed the program in Spring 2018.
Faiza Awale majored in Public Health. She joined SURE-EH in June 2022 under the mentorship of Dr. Karen Levy, Professor in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences.
Faiza's research asked "What are the sources and quantities of household fecal contamination, an important exposure pathway for enteropathogens, in ECoMiD (Enteropatógenos, Crecimiento, Microbioma, y Diarrea) households?" She ran quantitative PCR assays for microbial source tracking (MST) markers on environmental samples collected in Ecuadoran households including floor, hand rinses, and domestic water locations to assess the abundance and sources of household fecal contamination.
Faiza graduated in Spring 2023 and is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Epidemiology in the Department of Epidemiology at the University of Washington.
Chloe Bergstrom majored in Political Science. She began the program in August 2016. Her faculty mentor was Dr. Jeremy Hess, Associate Professor in Internal Medicine and Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences. Her research project focused on looking at the health co-benefits of climate change mitigation activities. While in the program Chloe created comprehensive tables that represented various health co-benefits from climate change mitigation. These tables were used in a presentation by Dr. Hess in September 2016 and will be used in paper to be published later. In January 2017 Chloe withdrew from the program citing conflicting school priorities.
Kaya Bramble majored in Industrial & Systems Engineering. She joined SURE-EH in June 2020 under the mentorship of Dr. Lianne Sheppard, Professor in Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences. Kaya's research was part of Dr. Sheppard's ACT-TRAP study and focused on using collected data and predictions to determine the relationship between ultrafine particle (UFP) air pollution exposure with income and race in the Greater Seattle Area. During her second year with the program, Kaya investigated the following questions: What is the relationship between UFP exposure and demographics (race, ethnicity, income, socioeconomic status) in the Seattle area? How do UFP exposure disparities compare to other pollutants such as BC and PM2.5? And what is the relationship between exposure disparities and historic redlining?
In May 2021, Kaya was one of twelve students to receive the University of Washington's Undergraduate Research Symposium Population Health Recognition Award for her research project "Ultrafine Particle Inequality by Race, Ethnicity, and Income in Seattle."
She also published the results of her research on redlining in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives in July 2023.
Kaya graduated in June 2022 and is currently an Industrial Engineer at Boeing.
Felicia Chiang majored in Human Centered Design and Engineering. She joined the program in November 2015 and completed the program in June 2016. Her faculty mentor was Dr. Edmund Seto, Associate Professor in Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences. Her project focused on improving information for communities at risk of exposure to elevated levels of air pollution. Felicia created mock ups and prototypes of a website and mobile interface for local organizations in the Bay Area to visually understand the level of air pollution around their neighborhood, and what actions could they take to improve the current situation. Felicia’s first opportunity working with the community was volunteering with the Red Cross to bring food to a remote community in Taiwan. Through that experience she learned the importance of field work which empowers the community.
Carmin Covarrubias Chong joined the program in November 2015 and completed it in June 2016. Her faculty mentor was Dr. Noah Simon, Department of Biostatistics. Her project was to develop a method to assess the association between potentially toxic exposures and health outcome, while adjusting for confounding variables that are related to location; eg. socioeconomic status, race/ethnicity and possibly other spatially-localized exposures. Carmin graduated from the University of Washington in August 2016 with a degree in Sociology.
Mae Coker majored in Public Health. She joined SURE-EH in June 2018 under the mentorship of Dr. Chris Simpson, Professor in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences. Mae's research area of biological monitoring of exposure to combustion products focused on diesel exhaust asking the question "What is the sensitivity, accuracy, and precision for measurement of 1-nitropyrene and related nitro-PAHs in household dust?"
Mae graduated in June 2019 and spent several months working as a Research Technician 1 in the Simpson Lab. She received her Master's degree in Occupational Hygiene here in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences in August 2023. She is currently working at the UW in the Department of Environmental Health and Safety (EH&S) as a Program Operations Specialist.
Karissa Crawford majored in Microbiology. She joined SURE-EH in June 2017 under the mentorship of Dr. Scott Meschke, Professor in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences. Her research, “Environmental Detection of Polio Virus Utilizing Reverse Transcription Recombinase Polymerase Amplification (RT-RPA)” investigated polio virus detection in environmental samples to determine how RT-RPA assays perform when compared to other polio virus detection methods.
Karissa graduated from the UW in the summer of 2018 and completed her SURE-EH training in June 2018. Currently, she is enrolled in the UW's Medical Laboratory Science post-baccalaureate program to continue her education in the microbiology field.
Emelin Delgado majored in Anthropology: Medical Anthropology & Global Health. She joined the program in the summer of 2021 under the mentorship of Dr. June Spector, Professor in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences. Emelin's original research area focused on the prevention of heat-related illnesses. By analyzing sleep and activity data that has been collected through the HEAT study, she looked at how heat exposure in farmworker housing affect sleep and how accurate and approachable bi-lingual messages about wildfire smoke be developed for farm and forestry workers. In her 2nd year she is worked on bringing awareness to H-2A worker housing and employer compliance with local, state, and federal housing standards.
Emelin graduated from the UW in Spring 2023.
Yasmin Everson was a major in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Sciences. She joined the program in September 2016 and worked with faculty member Dr. Julia Cui, Assistant Professor in Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences. In her 1st year as a SURE-EH trainee , Yasmin worked on understanding the relationship in gut microbiome to the ontogeny of drug-processing enzymes in liver of germ-free mice. During her 2nd year her project “Modeling the Hepatic Ontogeny of Epigenetic Gene Expression in HepaRG Cells” focused on determining if the dysregulation of epigenetic marks may lead to adverse drug reactions in vitro by altering the expression of drug-processing genes using HepaRG cells as a model. Additionally, understanding the potential hepatotoxicity of Dechlorane 602, BDE-99 and BDE-47 to the liver. Her research is relative to her previous work of establishing the expression of drug processing genes during development.
Yasmin graduated from the UW in Spring 2018 and is currently working at Amazon on their Environment, Health and Safety team.
Hannah Flores was a major in Microbiology and she joined the program in the summer of 2021 under the mentorship of Dr. Karen Levy, Professor in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences. Hannah looked at the impact of RV resident wastewater on community environmental health. Specifically, she tried to determine what was the optimized method for sampling and processing RV wastewater for downstream detection of pathogens and how does the RV pumping program effect community environmental health.
Hannah graduated in August 2022 with a BS in Microbiology.
Hank Flury majored in Statistics. He joined the program in June 2019 under the mentorship of Dr. Lianne Sheppard, Professor in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences. Hank’s research area was part of the ACT-TRAP study that aims to link traffic-related ultrafine particulate matter, as well as other pollutants, to the process of aging in the brain, namely Alzheimer’s Disease by using mobile monitoring from 100’s of site around the Seattle area. Hank’s research project "Identifying Bias in Mobile Monitoring Sampling Schemes" focused on determining the optimal method for the estimation of site-specific annual average pollutant concentrations. Hank graduated from the UW in June 2020 and has been accepted into a PhD program in Statistics at the University of North Carolina.
Matthew Gomez joined SURE-EH in June 2018 under the mentorship of Dr. Julia Cui, Assistant Professor in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences. Matthew's research area focused on gut microbiome and what role it may play in the connection between chemical dysbiosis and adverse health outcomes like cancer and inflammation. Specifically he is looked at how early life exposure to different environmental contaminants (BDE-47, TBBPA, BPS) may cause persistent dysbiosis in adult male mice.
Matt graduated in June 2020 with a BS in Microbiology and a BA in American Ethnic Studies. He was recently hired as an Associate Scientist at a local company specializing in biotherapeutics.
Niloufar Ghodsian joined SURE-EH in November 2015 and completed it in the spring of 2017. Her faculty mentor was Dr. Chris Simpson, Professor in Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences. Her research, “Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon Metabolites in Kenyan HIV-1 Infected Children” focused on the biological monitoring of exposure to combustion products, including diesel exhaust and wood smoke and was presented at the 2017 UW Undergraduate Research Symposium. Growing up in Shiraz, Iran, Niloufar observed the health impacts from poor quality first hand. In her project, she was able to analyze samples from Kenyan HIV-1 infected children and their caregivers who were exposed to indoor air pollution.
Niloufar completed her undergraduate studies at the University of Washington in the spring of 2017. She has since been admitted to the UW Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Graduate program where she will pursue her MS in Occupational & Environmental Exposure Sciences. She has also become a trainee in the Northwest Center for Occupational Health and Safety (NWCOHS) in the Industrial Hygiene program.
Daysha Gunther joined SURE-EH in November 2015 and completed it in June 2017. Her faculty mentor was Dr. Scott Meschke, Professor in Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences. Her research project, “Environmental Screening of Poliovirus Using Recombinase Polymerase Amplification”, focused on the development of enhanced methods for environmental surveillance of Poliovirus. The project sought to improve current surveillance methods where barriers constrain environmental detection of pathogens. She presented her research at the Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students (ABRCMS) in Tampa, Florida in Fall 2016 and the 2017 UW Undergraduate Research Symposium.
Daysha completed her undergraduate studies at the UW in June 2017 with a BS in Public Health and is currently pursuing her MPH in Health Systems and Policy in the UW’s Department of Health Services. She is also doing qualitative research for the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Washington.
Joanna Harrison is now a Master’s student in Environmental Health. She joined the program as an undergraduate in November 2015 and completed the program in June 2016. Her faculty mentor was Peter Rabinowitz, Associate Professor in Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences. Joanna’s SURE-EH research focused on the impact of Cryptosporidium and Giardia at the community level and its zoonotic transfer in Vicosa, Brazil with the aim of developing targeted interventions. As a graduate student her thesis work will be a continuation of that research focusing on the capture and detection methodology of Cryptosporidium and Giardia.
Shamey Kassim joined SURE-EH in June 2017 under the mentorship of Dr. Nicole Errett, Lecturer in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences. She withdrew in March 2018 to focus on her academic work. Shamey’s research looked into current recommendations to increase preparedness of methadone clinics affected by disasters such as 9/11 or devastating natural events. Specifically, she wanted to determine what evidence-informed interventions have been implemented to enhance emergency preparedness clinics located in King County, WA. Shamey hopes to one day go to medical school.
Medina Khedir entered the program in October 2016 and completed the program in the Spring of 2017. Her faculty mentor was Dr. Anjam Hajat, Assistant Professor in the Department of Epidemiology. Medina’s project title was “Tracking Levels of Air Pollution in 1980 and 2010 Using County Level Data”. It focused on determining if poor and minority groups are exposed to higher concentrations of air pollution as compared to other economic and racial groups.
As well as being a SURE-EH trainee, Medina was also a Center for American Politics and Public Policy (CAPPP) fellow. An Ethiopian immigrant, a Muslim, and a first generation college student, Medina hopes to pursue a career that will allow her to focus on health policy and immigrant populations. She graduated from the UW in the June 2017.
Samara Kleinfinger majored in Environmental Health / Environmental Studies. She joined SURE-EH in September 2017 under the mentorship of Dr. Tania Busch Isaksen, Lecturer in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences. Samara's research will be analyzing trends and barriers in the disposal of (food) waste of individuals by looking at both quantitative and qualitative data and creating a targeted solution to overcome them. Samara is currently interested in pursuing a career in an environmental and/or health related field.
Samara finished the program and graduated from the UW in Spring 2019.
Ahram Lee majored in Physiology and Biophysics. She joined the program in the summer of 2021 under the mentorship of Dr. Julia Cui, Professor in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences. In Ahram's 1st year of research she looked at Characterizing the interactions between environmental chemicals and gut microbiome during neurodegenerative diseases. Specifically, her research asked how developmental exposure with varying doses of PCB affect the dysbiosis of the gut microbiome.
In her 2nd year, she focused on how BPA, BDE-99, and PCB effects the organs’ RNA and protein on male conventional mice that are PND-5 and PND 60.
Ahram received her BS in Autumn 2022. She is currently pursuing a graduate degree in Pharmaceutics in the School of Pharmacy at the University of Washington.
Diana Marquez majored in Environmental Health. She joined SURE-EH in June 2019 under the mentorship of Dr. June Spector, Associate Professor in Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences. Diana’s research focused on heat as an environmental exposure affecting agricultural workers. She studied the effects across a summer season of Heat Education and Awareness Tools (HEAT) training intervention versus a comparison training on heat prevention knowledge among agricultural workers in eastern Washington state.
Diana graduated in Summer 2021 and was accepted to the DEOHS Graduate Program where she pursued an MS in Applied Occupational Hygiene. She received her Masters in March 2023 and is currently an industrial hygiene compliance officer at the WA Department of Labor and Industries where she focuses on the the agricultural industry across Washington state.
Gabby Mascarinas majored in Environmental Health. She joined SURE-EH in June 2019 under the mentorship of Dr. Julia Cui, Assistant Professor in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences. Gabby partnered with SURE-EH Bruk Molla (see below) to focus her research on the effects of PCSK9 deficiency on bile acid metabolism and the expression of genes involved in bile acid metabolism. This has resulted in winning (along with Bruk Molla) the 1st place Undergraduate Presentation Award at PANWAT in November 2020.
She was also a co-author on the recent publication "Understanding the physiological functions of the host xenobiotic-sensing nuclear receptors PXR and CAR on the gut microbiome using genetically modified mice" in the Journal Acta Pharmaceutica Sinica B.
Gabby graduated in Winter 2021 and completed her SURE-EH appointment at the end of Spring 2021. Since then, Gabby has worked at the WA Department of Health as a Microbiologist 1 doing COVID-19, Legionella, and West Nile surveillance from wastewater.
Bruk Molla majored in Environmental Health. He joined SURE-EH in September 2019 under the mentorship of Dr. Julia Cui, Assistant Professor in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences. He partnered with Gabby Mascarinas (see above) to focus his research on the effects of PCSK9 deficiency on bile acid metabolism and the expression of genes involved in bile acid metabolism. This has resulted in winning (along with Gabby Mascarinas) the 1st place Undergraduate Presentation Award at PANWAT in November 2020.
He was also a co-author on the 2022 publication ""Understanding the physiological functions of the host xenobiotic-sensing nuclear receptors PXR and CAR on the gut microbiome using genetically modified mice" in the Journal Acta Pharmaceutica Sinica B.
Bruk graduated in Spring 2021. In Fall 2023 he entered the University of Washington School of Medicine as a first year medical student .
Divya Naidoo majored in Public Health / Global Health. She joined SURE-EH in June 2017 under the mentorship of Dr. Jerry Cangelosi, Professor in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences. The goal of her research was to understand how oral microbiota differed by regions of the mouth in TB patients and healthy controls, and what opportunistic pathogens are present by sampling for pathogens, particularly Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB).
Divya finished the program in Spring 2019 and graduated with a BS in Public Health-Global Health in Spring 2020. She has most recently been working as a Health Services Consultant for the Washington State Department of Health.
Christine Perez Delgado joined the program in November 2015 and completed it in September 2017. Her faculty mentor was Dr. Rich Fenske, Professor in Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences. Her research focused on reducing agricultural worker risks through new and emerging technologies. Initially, Christine analyzed urine samples from pesticide handlers to look for biomarkers of acetamiprid exposure. With that project complete, pursued a field investigation analyzing pesticide drift into neighboring fields utilizing water sensitive paper. She presented her project, “Estimating Orchard Worker Exposure to Pesticide Drift using Water Sensitive Paper” at the 2017 UW Undergraduate Research Symposium.
Christine graduated from the University of Washington in Spring 2017 with a BS in Public Health.
Julio Ramos-Vazquez majored in Public Health-Global Health. He joined SURE-EH in June 2022 under the mentorship of Dr. Tania Busch-Isaksen, Associate Teaching Professor in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences. Julio investigated if there is a way to differentiate between various indoor particulate matter (PM) sources based on low-cost sensor data and without needing participant input. He looked at whether or not he could see the difference between activities that predominantly produce PM2.5 vs. activities that predominantly produce PM10 by collecting experimental data from pilot households and analyzed them using R to determine whether there are any behaviors that can be distinguished using the indoor sensors alone. Julio Graduated in Spring 2023 and is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Epidemiology in the Department of Epidemiology at the University of Washington
Aarti Tandon majored in Food Systems, Nutrition and Health. She joined the SURE-EH in the summer of 2021 under the mentorship of Dr. Eddie Kasner. Aarti's research area was agricultural worker safety, proper pesticide use procedures and equipment, and bilingual health and safety messaging via mobile apps and social networks. She focused on understanding user analytics to improve app experiences specifically- how do user characteristics inform or explain their interaction with the ‘Pesticide Labels Now’ application?
Aarti graduated in March 2022 with BA in Food Systems, Nutrition, and Health.
Ashley Thapa was Public Health - Global Health major. She joined the program in Summer 2021 under the mentorship of Dr. Karen Levy, Professor in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences. Ashley's research focused on TAC Positive Control validation for analysis of child stool samples. She looked at how to best develop reference organisms to use as positive controls for TAC validation and what are the results of TAC validation for reference organism.
Ashley graduated in June 2022 and is currently pursuing an MPH in Epidemiology at the University of Washington.
Kimanh Tran majored in Public Health / Global HEalth. She joined SURE-EH in June 2017 under the mentorship of Drs. Nicole Errett and Tania Busch Isaksen, Lecturers in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences. Kim's research analyzed heat and air quality related risk communications made by news media for ethnic minority (Vietnamese, Somali, and Spanish speaking) communities in King County, WA during the summer of 2017.
Kim was recently profiled by the UW School of Public Health. You can read her interview here. Kim completed the program in Spring 2019 and graduated in Spring 2020.
Javier Silva majored Public Health - Global Health major. He joined SURE-EH in the summer of 2020 under the mentorship of Dr. Nicole Errett, Assistant Professor in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences. Javier graduated in June 2022 and is currently pursuing a MPH degree in Epidemiology at the University of Washington.
Vy Tran joined the program in November 2015 and completed the program in June 2016. Her faculty mentor was Dr. Noah Sexias, Professor in Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences. Her project focused on working conditions, stress and health among low wage workers in Seattle. Vy helped develop a comprehensive questionnaire that will characterize injury experience and severity; non-work stressors; and general health status (objectively and subjectively measured) among workers employed across a variety of industries. Vy has since graduated with a degree in Environmental Health.She currently works as an EHS Consultant at Google and is in the process of applying to a MSPH program in Occupational Hygiene. In December 2016, she was featured in a “Spotlight” article for the University of Washington’s Be Boundless campaign highlighting her work to create safer workplaces: http://www.washington.edu/boundless/fighting-for-a-safer-workplace/
Camila Valdebenito Baeza majored in Biology. She joined SURE-EH in June 2017 under the mentorship of Dr. Scott Meschke, Professor in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences. Camila's research asked if the Bag Mediated Filtration System (BMFS) technique is efficient for detection of bacterial indicators and pathogenic bacteria in environmental waters. She hopes to eventually pursue a PhD in Epidemiology to research and model the impact of climate change on the occurrence and magnitude of infectious diseases.
Camila completed the program in Winter 2019 and plans to graduate in Spring 2020.
Maedot Yidenk majored in Microbiology. She joined SURE-EH in June 2017 under the mentorship of Dr. Lianne Sheppard, Professor in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences and Director of the BEBTEH Program. Maedot's research focused on determining if there is an association between high air pollution and low socioeconomic status (SES).
Maedot completed the program in the Summer 2019 and graduated with a MS in Cognitive Neuroscience at CUNY, NYC. She is currently a Research Assistant of the Columbia University Irving Medical Center.