The Graduate School and Inspiration Dissemination Present
Impacting our communities, changing our world
Watch the recordings below
February 25, 2021 5:30 to 7:00 p.m.
Join us as four current graduate students from Oregon State University share the questions and motivations framing their research in an 8 to 10-minute engaging format.
Grad Inspire combines scholarship communication with personal narrative, giving us a glimpse of not only "how" these students perform their work, but also the motivations and commitment behind it. This event introduces the phenomenal breadth of research, teaching, and discovery undertaken by graduate students at Oregon State.
Ph.D. Student, Public Health; Perry Hystad, advisor
I am interested in the human health impacts associated with environmental exposure to chemicals and metals in low income settings. Assessing these exposure and risks will help us propose locally targeted interventions aimed at protecting human health. My long term goal is to help improve the health of people in low income settings by reducing environmental exposure to pollutants.
Ph.D. Student, Wood Science and Civil Engineering Dual Major; Mariapaola Riggio, Lech Muszynski and Erica Fischer, advisors
I am passionate about providing shelter for the unhoused community from sustainable resources. I want to find the best way to create rapidly deployable structures from underutilized wood. I am trying to create buildings that can be assembled in a few days after disasters, like earthquakes, forest fires, or tsunamis, using Ponderosa pine, a tree harvested to manage forests better. These buildings will provide shelter for months or years and then can be disassembled and moved to a new place for another use. This technology can also find application in permanent structures such as affordable housing or classrooms.
M.A. Student, Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Mateo's work focuses on how Indigenous and Chicanx people are on the forefront of resistance to the construction of “border walls” along the Texas/Mexico border. They are looking to how media focuses on the activism at the border of cisgender, white, masculine and non-disabled voices in ways that bolster settler colonialism.
Ph.D. Student, Forest Ecosystems and Society; Ashley D’Antonio, advisor
I am a citizen of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation and a recreation ecologist. My research explores the bacterial (e.g., E. coli) and ecological impacts associated with outdoor recreation on Tribal lands. I’m passionate about integrating Indigenous Knowledge systems and decolonizing methods into biophysical and social science research. As a multidisciplinary scientist, my work builds bridges between multiple disciplines, including recreation science, molecular biology, ecology, Geographic Information Systems, and Traditional Ecological Knowledge.
Grad Inspire is a collaboration between the Inspiration Dissemination radio show and podcast and the Graduate School.
For an accommodation related to a disability please contact Karen Hanson at 541-737-4881 by February 17.
Photo by Joshua Hoehne