Student Highlights
PhD candidate, Olivia Sattayapiwat, recently presented her research at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium in the session, "Advancing Evidence of the Associations Between Specific Benign Breast Diagnoses and Future Breast Cancer Risk."
An article about her research and presentation is available at https://www.ajmc.com/view/refining-precision-prevention-for-benign-breast-disease. Congratulations to Olivia, as having an oral presentation accepted at this meeting is a huge honor.
Image Credit: Breast Cancer Surveillance Consortium
Xiaohong Wei attended the California Cattlemen's Association Convention conference and presented a poster on the topic of dispersal and risk factors for airborne E. coli in the proximity of a beef cattle feedlot. Under the supervision of Dr. Atwill, Xiaohong Wei, along with Amlan Aggrawal and Ronald Bond, conducted an exceptional study in the Imperial Valley during the COVID pandemic. The research received significant attention from the feedlot industry, produce farm industry, supermarkets, and the US FDA. One of the publications resulting from the study is currently listed on the California Cattle Council's website under the food safety section: https://calcattlecouncil.org/recentworks/research/
Yi Lor attended the Alzheimer's Association International Conference (AAIC) at Amsterdam, Netherlands in July 2023. The AAIC is a renowned conference where researchers from all over the world gather to meet and share their latest work in the understanding, prevention, and treatment of Alzheimer's disease and dementia. Yi shared his latest research on understanding how volunteering in late-life is associated with late-life cognitive function and decline, and how magnetic imaging resonance (MRI) brain measures are associated with cognitive decline in the KHANDLE and STAR study, two harmonized diverse cohorts of older adults ages 50 years or older. Additionally, Yi provided a research talk on subjective cognitive decline and objective measures of cognitive decline at AAIC. His research was featured as part of the AAIC and UC Davis Health media: https://health.ucdavis.edu/news/headlines/volunteering-in-late-life-may-protect-the-brain-against-cognitive-decline-and-dementia/2023/07
Katie Lee attended the 2023 National Institute of Antimicrobial Resistance Research and Education (NIAMRRE) Annual Conference held at the University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida. Katie presented a lighting talk titled “Impact of zinc supplementation on phenotypic antimicrobial resistance of fecal commensal bacteria from pre-weaned dairy calves”. Additionally, she received a first-place award for her poster presentation “Antimicrobial resistance in fecal commensals from cull dairy cattle in Central California”.
Shih-Yu Chen, PhD Candidate Attended the Conference of Research Workers in Animal Diseases (CRWAD) with her major professor, Dr. Gabriele Maier.
Prior to graduation, Peter Sebastian, PhD, represented the UC Davis One Health Institute at the Sea Otter Conservation Workshop XIII held at the Seattle Aquarium March 19th. His presentation "Expansion of virulent Vibrio parahaemolyticus in humans and sea otters" utilized genomic epidemiology to identify pathogenic Vibrio parahaemolyticus strains shared by humans and sea otters as well as the virulence factors associated with disease.
Kyle Yomogida, PhD and Sophie Zhu, PhD
Graduated from the doctoral GGE program and both are now Center for Disease Control and Prevention Epidemic Intelligence Service (CDC EIS) officers (Class of 2023).
Sophie Zhu attended the EcoHealth Alliance's EcoHealthNet workshop at George Mason University in June 2019. Students from across the world attended and learned about interdisciplinary topics such as GIS, compartmental modeling, and science communication. Sophie is also a research exchange intern with EpiCenter for Disease Dynamics this summer through the same program working under Dr. Johnson.
Laura Patterson - As a former small-scale, diversified farmer (e.g., flowers, vegetables) and goat dairy manager, my deep-rooted agricultural background informs my research as an epidemiology PhD candidate at the University of California, Davis. My dissertation focuses on evaluating the risk of disease transmission in the wildlife-livestock-human interface.
My interest in agriculture began as an Anthropology major at Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa, a liberal arts school rooted in the middle of farmland. Although agriculture degrees were not offered, our farming interest club brought speakers to campus and toured farms.
Dr. Belkhiria was invited to speak at the Fulbright student alumni conference on contemporary health issues (Cairo). Dr. Belkhiria focused on the importance of multidiciplinary efforts to solve emerging health issues and new strategies to manage complex health data.
Pablo Valdes-Donoso was awarded with the David A. Benfield Travel Fellowship 2016 from Kansas State University to participate in the North American PRRS Symposium 2016 this last December in Chicago. Pablo presented his 2nd and 3rd Chapter of his PhD dissertation: "Using Machine Learning to Predict Swine Movements within a Regional Program to Improve Control of Infectious Diseases in the US” and “Measuring production losses from endemic animal disease: Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS) in US sow farms”, the first one published and the second submitted and under revision. Additionally he wrote a short short communication for swine producers in the National Hog Framer Magazine summarizing his findings.
Read findings here
Kyuyoung Lee won “Best young scientist oral presentation award' in the 'GEOVET 2016: international conference of spatial epidemiology for animal heath”. The topic for the presentation was "Spatial and temporal characteristics of migration routes of wild waterfowls wintering from 2013 to 2016 in South Korea".
Yunru Huang, PhD candidate in epidemiology, won Best Abstract at the American Academy of Pediatrics National Conference & Exhibition Section on Critical Care.
Hanqi Luo, PhD candidate in epidemiology, participated in monitoring the National Fortification Program with industry leads, governmental officials, and non-profit organisations.
UC Davis doctoral student Emily Marlow received an Early Stage Radiation Investigators (ESRI) Travel award and the best poster award at the Conference on Radiation and Health (CRH).
UC Davis' Jacqueline Barkoski, a doctoral student in epidemiology, is participating in UC Graduate Research Advocacy Day. (Photo by Kayla Wigley/UC Davis)