The Public Impact Research Initiative (PIRI) was established through Public Scholarship and Engagement (PSE) to recognize and support research that is cogenerated with community partners, is of mutual benefit, and has a positive public impact.
Cultivating Youth and Community Resiliency: A Citizen Science Approach to Land Stewardship for Wildfire Mitigation in Maui, Hawaiʻi
Heidi Ballard, Professor and Faculty Director, Center for Community and Citizen Science, School of Education Jadda Miller, Graduate Student, Graduate Group in Education
This community science project aims to empower high school field ecology students in Maui, Hawaiʻi, with the knowledge and skills to mitigate wildfire impacts through landscape assessment, cultivation of native plant species, and increase their understanding of traditional Hawaiian land stewardship practices.
In collaboration with Kihei Charter School, Kipuka Olowalu (a nonprofit focused on watershed science), and education researchers at UC Davis, students will collect data on native and invasive species, remove flammable invasive grasses, and replace them with native drought-resistant plant species to promote a more fire-resistant landscape. Hawaiian Cultural Practitioners will introduce traditional land stewardship practices to deepen students’ connection to place, encouraging environmental stewardship, and culturally responsive education. To examine the impacts of participation on students’ science and cultural knowledge and their sense of agency development, high school students will be invited to write personal narratives before and after their involvement in the project. Focus groups and narratives will provide them with an opportunity to reflect critically on how engaging firsthand in project activities may or may not be shaping their identity, connections to land, their community, and Native Hawaiian culture. Centering student voices illuminates often overlooked pathways for community science education to nurture relationships, mental health, values, and decolonized place connections alongside academic learning. Research on the impacts of participating in this novel program will offer lessons for designing science and environmental education, as well as cultural revitalization programs, that foster youth agency with science as a means of action in the face of climate change.
Toxic Air Pollutants in California Environmental Justice Communities
Clare Cannon, Associate Professor, Human Ecology, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences Alex Sanchez, Graduate Student, Environmental Policy and Management Graduate Program
This community-engaged research project partners with Rise South City to deploy a novel, low cost air quality sensor to measure toxic metals in a frontline environmental justice community the San Francisco, Bay Area.
The project will work with residents to use the instruments, collect data, and report back findings. We will also work with our community partner to take our findings to the air quality regulators at the local Air Quality Management District to make a public impact. Deploying these low cost instruments will have additional public impact by improving them from what we learn so that other frontline communities can potentially use them to measure their own air quality for toxic air.
Helping to Improve Air Quality in Rural Communities by Raising Awareness About Unaccounted-for Emissions from Agricultural Soils
Ian Faloona, Professor, Land, Air, & Water Resources, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, and Air Quality Research Center Heather Lieb, Graduate Student Researcher, Land, Air, & Water Resources
Six of the top 10 US cities most polluted by daily particulate matter (PM) reside in California’s Central Valley, along with four of the top 10 most polluted by ozone.
Ozone and PM trends in both of the inland agricultural regions of the San Joaquin Valley and Salton Sea Air Basins of California have shown virtually no signs of abatement in the last two decades. Warm year-round temperatures make these regions the most productive farming areas in California, leading to some of the largest soil NO x emissions ever measured. NO x is a toxic air pollutant that is a precursor to both PM and ozone, and its sources have traditionally been dominated by fossil fuel combustion. However, as these emissions have declined due to regulatory control measures the source from soil microbes acting on applied nitrogenous fertilizers is becoming ever more consequential, yet is being massively underestimated. In collaboration with community associations and non-profit organizations in these rural parts of California, we aim to build on our ongoing air quality studies to push the issue of air pollutant emissions from agricultural soils into the forefront of the state’s air pollution control managers’ attention. We will continue to testify at public hearings about the continued failure of the state to bring these regions into attainment of federal national standards. And we will work to publish a policy article presenting mounting scientific evidence and proposing policy-oriented solutions.
Stories of Agri-Cultural Justice from California's Central Valley to the Mississippi Delta
Erica Kohl-Arenas, Associate Professor, American Studies, College of Letters and Science, and Faculty Director, Imagining America
Long time collaborators Erica Kohl-Arenas (American Studies and Imagining America, UC Davis) and Myrna Martinez-Nateras (Pan Valley Institute of the American Friends Service Committee) will bring together food justice cultural organizers, what we call Agri-Culture, in California's Central Valley.
Nurtured through 25 years of popular education gatherings and Central Valley cultural exchanges, a cohort of immigrant, refugee, and indigenous women will join together in story circles to reflect on the power of story, cultural tradition, food, and land in building thriving futures for those who struggle the most in one of the most productive agricultural regions in the world. Kohl-Arenas, Martinez-Nateras, and another member of the PVI community will then travel to Mississippi to learn from the groundbreaking Agri-Cultural work of the Mississippi Center for Cultural Production (Sipp Culture). From this work, Kohl-Arenas and Martinez-Nateras will co-author a chapter for Kohl's forthcoming book, Unruly Utopias: Radical World Building Projects from Northern California and Beyond and a series of journal articles. They will also share public facing stories through the diverse multi-media platforms of the national consortium Imagining America: Artists and Scholars in Public Life which Kohl-Arenas directs.
Advancing Tele-eye Care Accessibility for Individuals and Families with Cognitive Impairment: A Community-Engaged Approach
Yin Allison Liu, Associate Professor, Ophthalmology School of Medicine Oanh Meyer, Associate Professor, Neurology, School of Medicine David Bissig, Assistant Professor, Neurology, School of Medicine
Our objective is to establish connections with community partners to assess the feasibility of implementing a tele eye care program.
Through this pilot project, we aim to provide remote neuro-ophthalmic care to individuals and families affected by cognitive impairment. Community engagement strategies will address healthcare disparities, focusing on both native and non-native English speakers. The PIRI grant funding will support the project, fostering collaborations between UC Davis and our community partners to enhance accessibility and inclusivity in neuro-ophthalmic research. The generated data will be utilized for presentations, publications, and future NIH grant submissions.
Stewarding Future Veterinary Professionals: A Collaboration with Breakthrough Sacramento
Alexis Patterson Williams, Associate Professor and Chair of Teacher Education, School of Education Carrie J. Fino, Professor, Population Health & Reproduction, Veterinary Medicine Faheemah N. Mustafaa, Assistant Professor, School of Education Monae Roberts, Chief Diversity Officer, School of Veterinary Medicine Amy Young, Outreach Manager, Center for Equine Health, School of Veterinary Medicine
Animals play important roles in our lives and contribute to society. Pet ownership and demands for veterinary care continue to rise, but the shortage of veterinary professionals makes access to veterinary care challenging, especially in underserved and rural communities.
There is a need to expose students to careers in veterinary medicine, ensuring equitable career access for Californians of all racial-ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds. The proposed initiative will be executed by faculty and staff from UC Davis’ School of Veterinary Medicine and School of Education as well as Breakthrough Sacramento. We will co-develop curriculum, implement and conduct research on “VetMed Summer Exploration Academy”, a weeklong summer camp at the School of Veterinary Medicine for Sacramento middle school students from backgrounds historically underrepresented in veterinary medicine. A primary aim of the VetMed Summer Exploration Academy camp curriculum is to encourage dialogue between students and their parents/guardians. Our research will center on assessing shifts in students’ knowledge, interests, engagement, and intentions around veterinary medicine careers, as well as parents’/guardians’ shifts in knowledge and intentions for further encouraging and supporting their children’s interests. Accessibility of veterinary services directly and indirectly affects the health of animals, people, and communities. Preventable diseases, unmanageable population growth, and other consequences can arise in areas where animals do not have regular health care. Encouraging middle school students to consider careers in veterinary sciences not only benefits the future of the profession, but promotes science literacy, an essential skill to ensuring the health of people, pets, and the planet.
A Community Co-Envisioned/Co-Created Bilingual (Spanish/English) Documentary: Impact of COVID-19 on Latine/x Immigrant Communities in South Philadelphia, PA (USA)
Alicia Rusoja, Assistant Professor of Education, School of Education
Partner Organization(s): A group of community members in Philadelphia, not affiliated with a specific organization.
This project will translate to a public audience, via a short documentary film, an ongoing five- year-long participatory action research study (2021-2026), co-designed and co-led with Latine/x undocumented and documented immigrants.
This IRB-approved research addresses the following questions (1) How has COVID-19 impacted the lives, education, and political mobilization of Latine/x immigrants in South Philadelphia, PA?; (2) How are Latine/x immigrants making sense of and responding to the impact of COVID-19 on their lives?; and (3) What are, and what shapes, their individual and communal responses to the pandemic’s short and longer- term impacts on their lives? A central emergent finding is that COVID-19 has greatly impacted the political mobilization of Latine/x immigrants in S. Philadelphia, including the ways in which they utilize research to respond to COVID-19’s impact on the education of their children, youth, and intergenerational community. Their responses include the enactment of solidarity and mobilization of resources in ways that reflect an intersectional conceptualization of immigrant rights, so that health justice, education justice, racial justice, and the wellbeing of fellow oppressed and marginalized communities, are central to immigrant justice and immigrant wellbeing. The idea of a bilingual (Spanish/English) film documentary came directly from community members involved in this longitudinal research project, as part of the “action” phase of this study. Thus, the documentary will feature the voices, stories, and power of an intergenerational group of Latine/x un/documented immigrants who want to document and discuss their lives, education, and organizing prior to and during the pandemic.
Deferred Action for Labor Enforcement (DALE) Research and Policy Initiative
Leticia Saucedo, Professor, School of Law Raquel Aldana, Professor, School of Law Shayak Sarkar, Professor, School of Law
Undocumented workers are some of the most vulnerable workers in the U.S. labor market, in large part because they risk deportation in addition to other forms of employer retaliation for workplace complaints.
As a result, immigrants tend to work in some of the most risky, dangerous and least-desirable industries and occupations. Labor enforcement agencies, unions, policy makers, advocates and scholars have long recognized a need to protect such vulnerable workers. In 2023, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued guidance on conferring deferred action and work authorization to undocumented workers in workplaces under investigation for labor violations. The DHS guidance provides for Deferred Action for Labor Enforcement (DALE) to those who work for an employer during the period of investigation, triggered by a statement of interest from the relevant labor agency. This is the first time in the history of federal inter-agency collaboration that the DHS has granted deferred action for workplace-based labor violations. The possibility of deferred action for undocumented workers offers a historic opportunity for UC Davis researchers and community partners to study the effects of such protection on workplace advocacy by undocumented workers. DALE protection allows us to test whether workers who receive DALE employment authorization will, in fact, organize for workplace protections. UC Davis legal researchers and students will collaborate with Arriba Las Vegas Worker Center (Arriba), the leading non-profit organization advocating for DALE, to provide legal and research assistance to workers seeking DALE protection in Las Vegas.
Uncovering Diverse Histories of Yolo County
Cecilia Tsu, Associate Professor, History, College of Letters and Science Kate Bowen, CHSSP Elementary Consultant, California History Social Science Project, College of Letters and Science Dominique Williams, Ethnic Studies Coordinator, California History Social Science Project, College of Letters and Science Letters and Science
This project seeks to pilot a program that can serve as a model to research the untold local histories of underrepresented groups and to translate that research into curriculum for K-12 classrooms.
Although diverse communities of indigenous peoples, Asian Americans, Latino/as, and African Americans have long inhabited Yolo County, there is scant historical scholarship on those populations. Most of the historical research about the region has focused on white “pioneers” who were local farmers, merchants, and politicians. County residents are largely unaware that three federally recognized Patwin tribes consider Yolo County to be their traditional lands, that there was once a flourishing Chinatown in Woodland, or that the first African American resident of Yolo County arrived in 1854 as an enslaved person and later became a prosperous landowner. During World War II, Yolo County had the largest number of Mexican braceros in California, while the U.S. government uprooted numerous local Japanese American farm families and incarcerated them. Local archives and historical societies are untapped resources to investigate this history. The PIRI grant will enable a team of student researchers and educators to uncover underrepresented histories of Yolo County in partnership with the Yolo County Archives. Working with curriculum experts and teacher leaders, we will ultimately bring those stories to K-12 students in our community.
