KEYWORD

public health

NICU patient baby Megan grabs onto the finger of glove wearing registered nurse

Keeping hospitals healthy

Linda Dickey, a nurse and director of epidemiology & infection prevention at UC Irvine Medical Center, wears a small but significant yellow badge on her white coat. It’s proof that she’s current on her influenza vaccine. It’s also a symbol of the hospital’s commitment to fighting infectious diseases. In 2009, when fears were running high about […]

Tatiana Benavidas consoling Constanza Quiroga after the earthquake

Measuring mental aftershocks

The massive 8.8-magnitude earthquake that struck Chile in February 2010 left thousands homeless, caused billions of dollars in damages and triggered a deadly tsunami. The psychological impact of such traumatic events over time is the focus of an ongoing research collaboration between UC Irvine psychologists and Chilean academic and government officials. The quake — the […]

Building better lives

When four members of the UC Irvine student chapter of Engineers Without Borders headed to Endana, Kenya, last August to see how they could best help the rural community, it proved to be a real-life pass/fail test in leadership. “We didn’t know what we were getting into,” recalls Morgan Bailey, EWB chapter president and a doctoral candidate […]

Cecelia Brody

Fostering their potential

It’s called emancipation, but for youths in foster care, being released from the child welfare system at age 18 often feels more like abandonment. Without financial resources or emotional support, many struggle to survive. They often wind up homeless or in prison, according to the Orangewood Children’s Foundation. In California, only 54 percent of foster youths […]

Keeping the Mexican coast clear

UCI’s Sharon Stern and colleagues are helping a Mexican coastal village preserve a coral reef by better managing its wastewater.

Getting the lead out

Oladele Ogunseitan picks up a cell phone and tosses it into a small wood chipper in his UC Irvine lab. Is he conducting a wacky experiment? Overreacting to one too many dropped calls? Actually, Ogunseitan grinds up old phones for a purely scientific cause: He’s studying toxic electronic waste. Chair of the population health & […]

Dr. Emily Dow

Doctor for the destitute

Ask Dr. Emily Dow why she decided to practice medicine, and the answer might surprise you. Twenty years ago, she was teaching English as a Second Language to adults in Los Angeles when a middle-aged Latina student was stricken with chest pains during class. Dow wanted to call an ambulance to take her to a […]