Students attend environmental health conference
SPH students had a successful trip to San Francisco for a professional environmental health conference. They attended the 10th California Unified Program Annual Training Conference, which met February 4 through 7. This annual meeting builds the capacity of the environmental health workforce, integrating both the public and private sectors.
Five students from the department of environmental and occupational health attended. Among only 15 or so students who attended the conference of 1,200 participants, the five were Ashwini Erande, JiHyun Lee, Bernadette Macasias, Antonio Fields, and Fayomi Agboola.
“My main interest was to explore career options in the hazardous materials field,” reports Ms. Macasias. “This experience was also an outlet to be exposed to environmental agencies and gain another perspective on the role of environmental health professionals.”
Mr. Fields made note of the open forum for students and professionals.
“We were able to express our opinions and shed light on the different views among each generation,” he says. “I now grasp a better understanding of what some employers may be thinking when looking to hire from my generation.”
Mr. Agboola was among a select list of environmental health students to receive a special student award of $1,500 from the board of the California CUPA Forum (an association of Certified Unified Program Agencies). One of the sponsors of the conference, Cal CUPA is a local agency certified by California Environmental Protection Agency to implement the six state environmental programs within the local agency’s jurisdiction.
According to Seth Wiafe, MPH, interim chair of the department of environmental and occupational health, LLU nominated Mr. Agboola because of his excellence in academic achievement, active participation in environmental and public health practice and research, and commitment to the highest ideals of the environmental and occupational health profession.
A native of Nigeria who came to the United States in 2003, Mr. Agboola recently completed coursework for his MPH in environmental epidemiology. Besides his classes, he has gained experience through internships. He is a professional student intern with the Riverside County Department of Public Health, working under the federally funded Healthy Homes program.
Mr. Agboola also interned with the School of Public Health’s office of public health practice and workforce development as a graduate research assistant. He led out in a project that investigated the respiratory health of Native American children on the Torres Martinez Indian Reservation in relation to reported illegal burning and dumping on the reservation lands.
“Public health provides an avenue to make positive contributions in this expedition called life,” says Mr. Agboola, who plans to someday return to Africa to give back in any way he can.
The CUPA conference offered various training options addressing topics ranging from case studies in medical and hazardous waste to mental health considerations for disaster response personnel.
“A wonderful training I attended is verbal judo,” says Mr. Agboola. “Verbal judo focuses on tactical communication through a method of persuasion and/or enforcement.”
Through this class, he reports that he learned how to effectively communicate to achieve a desired outcome.
Also at the conference, Samuel Soret, PhD, participated in a round table discussion on how to improve CUPA’s relationship with academic institutions regarding workforce development. Dr. Soret is an environmental and occupational health faculty member who is spending the 2007-2008 academic year studying at the University of California at Berkeley School of Public Health.