Wendy Wheeler will not accept the title of “hero,” even when a stranger tries to pin it on her. A critical care nurse in Connecticut who accompanies sick children by ambulance to specialty facilities in the Northeast, Wheeler also serves two-week stints around the country as a member of one of the federal government’s Disaster […]
COVID-19 has made an often-tough situation even harder for women researchers in the sciences
Stories of the pandemic’s effects on women’s work lives have spread far and wide: mothers having to quit jobs to care for their homebound toddlers following the closure of daycare facilities; moms helping kindergarteners navigate online school in between their own Zoom conferences; adult daughters juggling career responsibilities while tending to the immediate needs of […]
From the real world: Stempel College graduates offer sage advice to students
FIU’s annual Panther Alumni Week concludes today, and the Robert Stempel College of Public Health & Social Work did its part to bring students and graduates together for a meaningful exchange. Several alumni answered questions and shared advice with nearly two dozen Stempel students via a Zoom gathering. The event was part of the college’s […]
Stempel College grad student shares nutrition lessons that would have saved her hardship as a teen
A diagnosis of lactose intolerance hit then-13-year-old Clara Rivera hard. With little guidance from medical experts about how to change her diet, she and her family simply cut out all dairy products – with devastating effects. “I had stunted growth,” says Rivera of the consequences of inadequate nutrient intake, “and I fell into a lot […]
5 reasons to pursue a public health degree
MPH graduates are making an impact on their communities and the world. If the coronavirus pandemic has offered any insight, it would be that the world needs public health professionals who can help keep communities informed and healthy. “Public health is really about helping people and communities,” says Yasenka Peterson, director of educational programs and […]
Stempel doctoral student earns NIH fellowship to study impact of trauma, stress on alcohol use of recent Latinx immigrants
For the past eight years Vicky Vazquez has been working with the immigrant community in Florida, helping organize outreach events and learning about their needs. It’s a labor of love and particularly personal for the doctoral candidate, who is studying health promotion and disease prevention in the Robert Stempel College of Public Health and Social […]
Article about Stempel professor’s COVID-related nutrition findings earns record-breaking number of page views
Advice from dietetics and nutrition professor Cristina Palacios on how to help fight off COVID-19 by consuming specific foods and supplements has taken the internet by storm. An article on work she conducted in collaboration with a team of international experts appeared on the FIU News website in late November and continues to earn a […]
“What I’m doing is personal,” says newly graduated Stempel Ph.D. whose dissertation on the wellbeing of refugees has just garnered national attention
Mitra Naseh this month won a national award for a dissertation that presents “a multidimensional model for understanding poverty among refugees.” But the 2020 graduate of the Stempel College of Public Health & Social Work has had little time to celebrate the good news. She’s too busy. The native of Iran, who earned a bachelor’s […]
Professor makes the case for culturally sensitive nutrition services
In an increasingly multicultural society, helping individuals navigate the food landscape with an eye toward better health can be challenging. Associate Professor Marcia Magnus of the Stempel College’s Department of Dietetics and Nutrition at FIU knows that better than most. With the university for more than 30 years, she served for part of that time […]
Through the lens of COVID-19: Researchers offer a holistic look at health as the collateral damage of social inequality
A professor and a doctoral student in the Robert Stempel College of Public Health & Social Work have pulled together statistics that lay bare the devastation of COVID-19 on the United States’ most economically vulnerable populations. In a paper recently published in the Journal of the National Medical Association, Nasar U. Ahmed and Ian J. […]