UCB SRP Trainee Highlights in 2024-25

Trainees participated in ‘Git and GitHub for Public Health,’ a half-day workshop, led by Dr. Corinne Ridell and Dennis Khodasevich and coordinated by DMAC and RETCC. The workshop was developed by Dr. Ridell and Lauren Wilner and an outline is available at https://git-for-public-health.netlify.app/. Modules included Why Git and GitHub, Git Jargon, Interacting with Terminal and Bash, Naming Folders and Files, Solo Workflow, Group Workflow, What to Track on Git and GitHub, Daily Practice, and Assorted Git Processes and Tips. The workshop provided trainees with a strong foundation for data management and sharing. (Sept 10, 2024)

RETCC’s Education Outreach Team hosted an environmental science/justice workshop for 15 Bay Area teachers. The workshop was led by Sarah Schwartz in coordination with Meghan Strazicich of Ignited Education, as part of a professional development week for teachers themed ‘Sustainable Solutions for Alternative Futures’. Sarah, Ricarda Schittich and Jenni Shearston shared a lesson plan that could be adapted to use GIS, CEC-WESS’s  Drinking Water Tool and CalEnviroScreen to explore issues in a local context in the Bay area and California.  The teachers enthusiastically participated in hands-on activities and discussed how they could use the resources and tools to share technologies and practices and their societal and environmental implications, as well as career opportunities, with their students. (July 12, 2024)

Hands-On Environmental Science Mentoring Program at Latitude High School. Tae-Kyoung Kim (Project 4) organized a hands-on environmental science mentoring session titled “Effect of Eutrophication on Environmental Health” for 11th-grade students at Latitude High School in Oakland. Tae and Project 4 team members Juan Salazar and Griffin Walsh discussed with the students the reasons for the recent eutrophication in Lake Merritt, the parameters used to evaluate the severity of algal blooms (e.g., temperature, DO levels, and nutrient levels), the effect of eutrophication on environmental health, and the measures that can be taken to prevent future eutrophication occurrences. Project 4 team members also mentored students in the 2024 Oakland Unified School District Techlink (K-12) program. (October, 2024)

Awards / Training / Engagement

  • Tae-Kyoung Kim received a KC Donnelly Externship Award for 2024-25 and worked with Dr. Robyn Tanguay and the Sinhuber Aquatic Research Laboratory (SARL) at OSU Superfund Research Center  to conduct preliminary steps towards zebrafish screening for toxicity of transformation products formed during VUV/UV254/alcohol-based remediation. 
  • Helena Archer engaged in research related to her UCSF EaRTH Seedling Award. She co-authored a paper showing that localized production from oil and gas wells was associated with community-level COVID-19 case and mortality rates and presented in a webinar to the EaRTH community. Helena also continued a year-long training related to her University of Washington Disaster Resilient Communities (IDEAAL DR2) 2024-25 training award. 
  • Jenny Rempel and Jenni Shearston participated in UCSF EaRTH Center’s Reach-the-Decision-makers Program for 2024-25, undertook a year-long training, and are working on a team project with the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) updating DPR regulations to reference a newly developed method for identifying potential groundwater contaminants.
  • Jenny Rempel received a UC Berkeley Philomathia Graduate Fellowship in the Environmental Sciences (Jenny Rempel). 
  • Jenni Shearston received the Bernard Weinstein Award for Academic Excellence in Environmental Health Sciences and co-authored an NIEHS Environmental Factor Extramural Paper of the Month.
  • Seraphina Shi was a Research Intern (Bioinformatics & Machine Learning) at GRAIL in Menlo Park from Jun 2024 – Aug 2024.

In the media:

  • Jenni Shearston participated in interviews with various outlets (e.g., SF Chronicle, National Geographic, Today, NPR and CBS News) and was featured in a brief video in Berkeley Public Health News, where she shared and contextualized her research findings showing the presence of metalloids in tampons. These efforts led to initiation of a safety investigation by the FDA. 
  • Helena Archer’s research linking oil and gas production with Covid-19 risk was featured in Berkeley Public Health News on Feb 2, 2025 and in Inside Climate News.

Leadership and Service:

  • NIEHS SRP SPAN Leadership Committee (Sarah Schwartz, Juan Salazar)
  • RETCC’s Education Outreach Team (Sarah Schwartz, Tae-Kyoung Kim and others)
  • Curriculum development and instruction for Columbia’s Epigenetic Bootcamp (Anne Bozack)
  • Community Water Center Board member (Jenny Rempel)

Papers, a Database, and a Software package: More in preparation. *denotes a Trainee/alum.

  • Rigutto G*, McHale CM, Rana I*, Zhang L, Smith MT. Mapping assays to the key characteristics of carcinogens to support decision-making. Database. 2025:baaf026. PMID: 40261741. PMCID: PMC12013474. Admin/Research Translation Core.
  • Bozack AK*, Merrill SM, Cardenas A. Epigenetic Biomarkers for Understanding Adverse Experiences and Health. JAMA network open. 2024 August 1;7(8):e2427070. PMID: 39120907. Project 2
  • DeMarini DM, … Gabrielle Rigutto*, … Aline de Conti, Mary K. Schubauer-Berigan, and Federica Madia. Commentary: IARC Workshop on the Key Characteristics of Carcinogens: Assessment of End Points for Evaluating Mechanistic Evidence of Carcinogenic Hazards. 133(2) Feb 2025. 025001-1 to 025001-8. PMCID: 11790013. Admin/Research Translation Core.
  • Goin D*, Amy Padula, Allison Sherris, Kiley Charbonneau, Tracey Woodruff, Rachel Morello-Frosch. Water fluoridation and birth outcomes in California. Env Health Perspectives. PMCID: PMC11098007. CEC/Project 1
  • Karasaki S*, Arianna Libenson*, Tien Tran, Komal Bangia, Lara J. Cushing, Jenny L. Rempel*, Laura August, Lauren Baehner, Morello-Frosch and Clare Pace* How a community-academic-government partnership for drinking water justice strengthens the rigor, relevance, reach, and reflexivity of science. Environmental Justice. doi: 10.1089/env.2024.0039. CEC/Project 1 
  • Tae-Kyoung Kim*, Donghyun Lee, Griffin Walsh*, Changha Lee, David L. Sedlak. Unwanted Loss of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) During in Situ Chemical Oxidation Sample Preservation: Mechanisms and Solutions. J Hazardous Materials Letters. 100102. PMCID: 11501080. Project 4
  • Libenson A*, Karasaki S*, Cushing LJ, Tran T, Rempel JL*, Morello-Frosch R, Pace C*. PFAS-Contaminated Pesticides Applied near Public Supply Wells Disproportionately Impact Communities of Color in California. Environmental Science and Technology, Water. PMCID: PMC11186009. CEC
  • McCoy, D.*, Zhang, W., Hubbard, A., van der Laan, M., & Schuler, A. Data-Adaptive Identification of Subpopulations Vulnerable to Chemical Exposures using Stochastic Interventions. arXiv preprint arXiv:2406.10792. DMAC
  • Rempel JL* and Kristin B Dobbin. When “symbolic” policy is anything but: Policy design and feedback from California’s human right to water law. Policy Studies Journal. https://doi.org/10.1111/psj.12564. CEC/Project 1
  • Smith Anna R*, Lin PD, Rifas-Shiman SL, Fleisch AF, Wright RO, Coull B, Finn PW, Oken E, Gold DR, Cardenas A. Prenatal blood metals, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances and antigen- or mitogen-stimulated cord blood lymphocyte proliferation and cytokine secretion. Environmental research. 2024 October 15;259:119555. PMID: 38964580; PMCID: PMC11365774 (available on 2025-10-15). Project 2

Presentations at national and international conferences. 

  • Oral presentations at  ISEE in Santiago, Chile (August, 2024)
    • Helena Archer. Drinking water arsenic contamination and COVID-19 outcomes in California, USA. 
    • Jenny Rempel. Historical redlining and drinking water quality in Los Angeles, California, USA. 
  • Anne Bozack. Oral presentation. DNA methylation signatures of arsenic metabolism: Epigenome-wide associations in the Strong Heart Study. 2024 Environmental Mutagenesis and Genomics Society, Epigenetics Special Interest Group Meeting, Palm Springs, CA. 
  • Anne Bozack. Oral presentation. Associations of prenatal metals with early life epigenetic aging biomarkers. 2024 International Symposium on Metallomics, in London, England.
  • Sarah Schwartz. Oral Presentation, “In situ biotransformation of highly-fluorinated contaminants,” to the California Department of Toxic Substance Control (DTSC) PFAS Working Group (June 2024). 
  • Katherine Wolf. Oral presentation. Society for Epidemiologic Research Meeting in Austin, Texas. Climate-Related Water Contaminants and Fetal Loss in California. (June 20, 2024)
  • Hyun Yoon. Oral presentation. Effects of iron, organic matter, and seawater intrusion on PFAS precursor sorption in soil and groundwater. SETAC North America 45th Annual Meeting in Fort Worth, Texas. (Oct 23, 2024). 
  • Tae-Kyoung Kim. Oral presentation. Removal of Decachlorobiphenyl from the Solid Phase Using Alcohol Flushing Followed by VUV/UV Irradiation. 2024 ACS Fall meeting in Denver, CO (August 20). 
  • Tae-Kyoung Kim. Oral presentation. 2025 Spring ACS Meeting in San Diego. Rapid in situ remediation of a nitroaromatic compound: reduction of dinitrotoluene by sodium borohydride ethanolic solution injection. (March 24)
  • Juan Salazar. Oral Presentation. 2025 Spring ACS Meeting in San Diego. Effect of hydrophobic organic contaminant partitioning onto soil organic matter and minerals on the efficacy of in situ chemical oxidation with persulfate. (March 24). 
  • Nolan Gunter. Poster presentation. International Conference on Health Policy Statistics in San Diego,.  Nonparametric scalable collaborative targeted maximum likelihood estimation for high-dimensional confounder selection. (Jan 6-8, 2025) 
  • Nolan Gunter. Poster presentation. Eastern North American Region International Biometric Society Conference in New Orleans. Variance-Reduced Learning in Auto-Debiased Causal Neural Networks. (March 23-26, 2025)