Title: The Student Involvement Committee
Author:
Derek Shendell and Rebecca Gluskin
Section/SPIG: Environment
Issue Date:
The Student Involvement Committee (SIC)
is looking forward to an excellent set of poster and oral presentations at the
APHA Annual Meeting in Denver this November! The finalists in the
Student Poster Award session will present on Monday morning, Nov. 8
(10:15-12:30 commitment). At present, we have a set of five judges including Dr.
Derek Shendell and Jyostna Jagai working before, during (review) and after
(scoring) the session, including three Student Scholarship recipients
(presenting in other sessions). There are 10 finalists confirmed attending; one
wait-list finalist has been accepted into another oral session co-sponsored
with other sections. We again thank the various senior Section members who
served as peer-reviewers of the dozens of abstracts submitted from students of
public health, urban planning, environmental science and policy from throughout
the United States and even from a few European nations. Please note four of the 10
finalists revised their abstracts by June (now available online) based on new
research data and/or co-authors since February submission. Furthermore, we thank
section members who made efforts to solicit donations from U.S. schools of public health for the funds supporting scholarships for students to help defray
costs of attending the Annual Meeting. Many students applied for scholarships
this year; applications were reviewed and about 3-in-4 (33 overall, and about
half are from underrepresented racial/ethnic minority groups) were provided
travel-related support based on documented need, thanks to a generous grant
from the Kresge Foundation. Many of the recipients are already volunteering
their time to support Environment Section committee work, including the Topic
Committee on Climate Change and Global Health (n=4 students as of this
writing); the Student Involvement Committee (n=5 in total); Program Planning
(n=1); etc. We hope all of them will contribute to the Section. Please make
new student members feel welcome and encourage them to get involved when you
meet them in Denver at any of our sessions, at one of our morning
business meetings, or at the social hour on Monday night, Nov. 8! Finally,
Environment Section committee leaders, please e-mail Dr. Derek Shendell and
Rebecca Tave Gluskin (SIC co-chairs) with names of students now working with
your team.