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Recent M-LEEaD News and Member Updates

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2024

March 2024: M-LEEaD Newsletter March 2024: Catch up from PEPH, Pilot Grant Call, Member News! • The Partnerships for Environmental Public Health (PEPH) 2024 meeting bought grantees and partners within the PEPH network together to discuss common issues, approaches, and opportunities. The focus was on engaging diverse teams in the context of the intersection of climate change and environmental justice. M-LEEaD was well-represented at the event, as outlined below: Natalie Sampson was a panelist on the workshop session titled “Intergenerational Engagement,” which focused on the importance of engaging multiple generations in environmental health topics as essential when building capacity for youth and beyond in this sector. The session provided an understanding of effective strategies when working... Read more

February 2024: M-LEEaD Newsletter February 2024 • Have you caught any of M-LEEaD’s Residents & Researchers (R&R) Seminars? The R&R series, a collaboration between the Community Engagement and Integrated Health Sciences Cores, facilitates partnerships and understanding of community concerns among M-LEEaD researchers - and of scientific research among people experiencing environmental exposures in their communities. The goal is to help connect research on environmental risk factors to the experience of environmental hazards in the places where people live, work and play - and even more importantly, to provide examples of the power of partnerships between researchers and community residents in addressing critical environmental health issues. The focus... Read more

January 2024: M-LEEaD Newsletter January 2024: Partnership Development Program, Member News, and More! • M-LEEaD’s Community Engagement core is excited to announce our “Partnership Development Program” (PDP). The PDP provides financial and technical support for new partnerships between community members and researchers. We can also support existing partnerships taking on new or expanded collaborative research efforts. Applicants should be working in partnership to address research questions related to environmental health and justice issues—either their causes or their solutions or both. Applications must be submitted on behalf of at least two partners: an academic partner and a community group, community-based organization or government agency in Detroit, Southeast Michigan or other Michigan communities experiencing environmental health... Read more

2023

December 2023: M-LEEaD Newsletter November/December 2023: APHA Updates, Member News • This year’s American Public Health Association (APHA) conference from November 12-15 was organized around the theme of “Creating the Healthiest Nation: Overcoming Social & Ethical Challenges.” M-LEEaD’s Community Engagement Core was well represented at the event in Atlanta! Sam Karsky, Alison Walding and Amy Schulz presented a poster session on behalf of the Community Action to Promote Healthy Environments Partnership titled “Participatory, formative evaluation of the Community Action to Promote Healthy Environments (CAPHE) partnership: Results and actions, 2014-2023“ in a session on the impact of community-based and community-engaged research. CAPHE partners from Southwest Detroit Environmental Vision, the Ecology Center and... Read more

November 2023: M-LEEaD Newsletter October 2023: EHSCC Annual Meeting Recap, News Highlights and Upcoming Events • The 2023 NIEHS Environmental Health Sciences (EHS) Core Centers in-person meeting was hosted by the Gulf Coast Center for Precision Environmental Health this past October, with stellar attendance from centers across the country. Environmental contributions to health disparities, precision environmental health, and climate change and disaster research response represent important areas of scientific focus at NIEHS and were explored during the four-day meeting in Houston, TX. The M-LEEaD Center was well represented at the event, with the following speakers: Bambarendage Pini Perera presented in the Early Stage Investigator Spotlight on “Emerging Roles of PIWI-interacting RNA in Toxicoepigenetics Research: Sex- and Tissue-Specific... Read more

October 2023: M-LEEaD Newsletter September 2023: Legislative Forum Recap, Center News, Apply for new Seed Pilots • M-LEEaD’s Climate, Environment & Health Legislative Forum in Lansing on Tuesday, September 19, 2023 focused on providing scientific research and expertise relating to Michigan's most pressing climate issues. This bipartisan forum, sponsored by Michigan State Representatives Abraham Aiyash and Greg Markkanen, offered legislators and staffers access to prominent researchers speaking on topics of affordable water, improving community environmental health, weatherizing homes, and wildfire preparedness. Elizabeth Mack, PhD, MA, from Michigan State University, spoke on “Steps Towards Affordable Water: A Policy Agenda.” Dr. Mack’s research utilizes mixed methods to understand the evolution of the economy in the face of rapid technological change... Read more

September 2023: M-LEEaD Newsletter August 2023: Recap of Summer Omics and Data Science Symposium, Member News • On July 20, 2023, the M-LEEaD Pan Omics and Data Science (PODS) Core hosted the Summer Omics and Data Science Symposium at the U of M School of Public Health. PODS leaders Maureen Sartor and Jackie Goodrich organized the event, with 2 keynote speakers and 4 shorter presentations by early career researchers. The keynote speakers Drs. Justin Colacino and Stephen Goutman spoke on “Single cell and spatial omics studies in EHS” and “Targeting the ALS Exposome for Disease Prevention,” respectively. The 4 lighting round talks were presented by Drs. Rachel Morgan, Pini Perera, Kai Wang, and Yue Zhao. These talks... Read more

June 2023: M-LEEaD Newsletter June 2023: Recap of Career Development Event, Member News, Upcoming Opportunities, and More! • On May 9, 2023, M-LEEaD hosted our 2023 EHS Early Investigator Career Development Workshop for 30 virtual and in-person Early Stage Investigators, including attendees from other EHSCCs at Wayne State University, the University of Kentucky, the University of Washington, and Oregon State University. This lively event included a presentation on “Building and Maintaining Collaborative Networks” from Drs. Justin Colacino and Kelly Bakulski (both faculty at the University of Michigan). The Director of Graduate Student and Program Consultation Services from the U of M Rackham Graduate School, Mallory Martin-Ferguson, presented an interactive session on “Difficult Conversations.” In this session attendees worked... Read more

May 2023: M-LEEaD Newsletter May 2023 • The Center Scientist position, offered through M-LEEaD's Career Development Program led by Gil Omenn and Justin Colacino, provides special mentorship experiences to two early stage investigators, and selected candidates engage in research that addresses the goals of the M-LEEaD Center to define, explain, or mitigate impacts of environmental exposures during vulnerable stages of life. We are pleased to announce the 2023-24 Center Scientists! Xin Wang, PhD, MPH, is a Research Investigator in the Department of Epidemiology. He received his PhD and MPH in Epidemiology from the University of Michigan. With a strong foundation in environmental epidemiology, Dr. Wang is dedicated... Read more

April 2023: M-LEEaD Newsletter April 2023- Center Scientist Successes, Member News and Upcoming Events • Both of M-LEEaD’s current Center Scientists attended and presented posters at the 2023 Society of Toxicology meeting in Nashville, Tennessee. We would like to highlight some of their recent successes! Rebekah Petroff (Bek), a postdoctoral fellow researching epigenetics and environmental exposures in the lab of Drs. Jackie Goodrich and Dana Dolinoy, presented a poster at SOT on the topic of the associations between developmental lead and DEHP exposure and differences in brain and blood DNA hydroxymethylation. An article, which Bek was first author on, was just published in Clinical Epigenetics, with the title “Mediation effects of DNA methylation and hydroxymethylation... Read more