Inside the 2025 Fall Social: Where Air Quality Meets Neuroscience
Each Fall, the UC Davis Environmental Health Sciences Center hosts a social bringing together member scientists, other researchers, and students to share and discuss their research. From wildfires to neuroscience, the Fall Social is a place for people to engage with emerging research, make new connections, and deepen an understanding of environmental health science through poster sessions, presentations, and discussion. Here’s a look back from our 2025 Fall Social.
T32 Trainee Posters
The day kicked off with poster presentations by T32 trainees – graduate students and scholars receiving specialized research training through National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding. Presenters included Samuel Arriola, Kimberly Gardner, Elizabeth Hale, Rosalia Mendieta, Mira Miles, Olivia Rice, Mark Salazar, Madelyn Tucker, Brandon Willis, and Yu-han Yeh.
The NIH supports the T32 program to prepare predoctoral trainees to become successful leaders in the national biomedical workforce. As an NIH-funded center, EHSC contributes to this mission through interdisciplinary research and coursework.
Lightening Talks
The program continued with lightning talks from UC Davis researchers, who each gave a brief, 4-minute presentation before joining a lively round-table Q&A discussion. Toggle through the names below to learn more about each presenter and their work.
- Brooks Kuhn, MD, MAS
- Dr. Brooks Kuhn is an Associate Professor of Medicine at UC Davis. His research focuses on improving care for patients with acute COPD exacerbations, including early detection using technologies such as remote patient monitoring to prevent hospitalizations and disease progression. He applies health informatics and emerging technologies to modernize COPD management. Dr. Kuhn's lightening talk focused on a wildfire preparedness healthcare system model.
- Clare Cannon, PhD
- Dr. Clare Cannon is a Professor in the Department of Human Ecology at UC Davis. Her work uses interdisciplinary approaches to better understand social, economic, and environmental systems. Through her research, Dr. Cannon examines how conditions shape community health and well-being. Dr. Cannon presented her study, "GROWell + Climate Change" which found extreme weather was associated with health outcomes for pregnant women.
- Erkin Şeker, PhD
- Dr. Erkin Şeker is a Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Co-Director for the Center for Neuroengineering and Medicine and Chair of the Designated Emphasis in Neuroengineering. He presented his research, "Environmental Toxins & Microbiota-Gut-Brain Axis."
- Jeanette Cobian-Iñiguez, PhD
- Dr. Jeanette Cobian-Iñiguez is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering. She runs the Cross-Border and Bilingual Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) program, collaborating on wildfire research across Mexico and other Latin American countries. Her research includes wildfire communications and education in Spanish and English to identify gaps and make recommendations. Dr. Cobian-Iñiguez spoke about her research on the Eaton and Palisades fires in Los Angeles in 2025.
- Nicholas Spada, PhD
- Dr. Nicholas Spada is an air quality researcher with the DELTA Group at UC Davis, where he uses nuclear methods to study aerosols. His research focuses on understanding how airborne particles move through the environment and how they affect human health. Through this work, Dr. Spada helps improve our understanding of air pollution and its impacts on communities and ecosystems. Dr. Spada presented on sample collection in three regions: coal dust monitoring in Baltimore, Maryland; VOC and black carbon monitoring in Vallejo, California; and mobile monitoring and ash collection during the 2025 Los Angeles fires.
- Peter James, ScD
- Dr. Peter James is a Professor at the UC Davis School of Medicine and Director of the Center for Occupational and Environmental Health. Trained in environmental health and epidemiology, his research examines how environmental and geographic factors, such as nature exposure, the built environment, air pollution, noise, and socioeconomic conditions, shape health behaviors and chronic disease. Dr. James spoke on his research on the exposome using mobile health technologies, including smartphone GPS and wearable devices, to study these influences in real time.
- Wilson Rumbeiha, PhD
- Dr. Wilson Rumbeiha is a Professor of One Environmental Health Toxicology in Department of Molecular Biosciences at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine. His research focuses on basic and translational aspects of hydrogen sulfide-induced neurotoxicology and neurodegeneration, and translational veterinary clinical and diagnostic toxicology. Dr. Rumbeiha lightening talk focused on recent research: "A community-based One Health study on health effects of environmental harmful algal bloom exposure."
