A new center at The University of New Mexico has received a $3.83 million award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH)/National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR) that will support the mission of improving climate resilience in New Mexico.
The UNM Climate and Health Allied Network for Geospatial and Environmental Science (CHANGES) Center will be housed in the Accelerating Resilience Innovations in Drylands Institute (ARID Institute), a new campus-wide hub to improve climate resilience in New Mexico by facilitating connections, partnerships, and opportunities.
“The spirit of resilience in our New Mexican communities drives our efforts. The partnerships of the UNM CHANGES Center housed in the ARID Institute aim for excellence to honor our university and state,” said UNM Professor and Regents' Lecturer of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering José Cerrato, who is part of the ARID leadership team and will serve as the Director and Principal Investigator.
The goal of the UNM CHANGES Center is to identify gaps in health care that can inform strategies to protect vulnerable communities in New Mexico from climate change.
“To reach this goal requires new methods that bring together geographic information, data on health outcomes and patterns in occurrence, epidemiology, and possible medical interventions,” according to Cerrato. “We are truly excited to receive funding from NIH/NINR to support the new UNM CHANGES Center. This new center will enable access to cutting-edge tools to protect the health of communities in New Mexico experiencing wildfires, droughts, and other climate related challenges.”
Overall specific aims of the CHANGES Center include:
- Synthesize and integrate diverse datasets and leverage cutting-edge tools for geospatial analysis to connect exposure and health outcomes data to discover previously unseen patterns;
- Develop culturally responsive practices for community engagement in climate health that benefit diverse communities, underserved and underrepresented populations, and key stakeholders;
- Establish a sustainable transdisciplinary Climate Change and Human Health Center serving as a model for cross-campus team science and climate change interventions that maximize human health outcomes.
UNM CHANGES Center includes interdisciplinary researchers from Main Campus and the Health Sciences Center, including members of the:
- School of Engineering (Gerald May Department of Civil, Construction & Environmental Engineering)
- College of Nursing
- College of Arts and Sciences (Geography and Environmental Studies, Earth and Planetary Sciences, Biology, Communication and Journalism)
- College of Pharmacy (Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences)
- School of Medicine (Department of Internal Medicine)
- UNM Comprehensive Cancer Center (UNM CCC)
- Earth Data Analysis Center (EDAC)
UNM Distinguished Professor of Biology Jennifer Rudgers and Professor of Biology Marcy Litvak serve as co-directors of the ARID Institute. For more information about the rest of the ARID Institute leadership team, see the website. The mission of ARID is to enhance the resilience of communities, ecosystems, and the economy to climate change through inclusive and equitable research, education and collaborative partnerships in New Mexico and drylands worldwide.
Professor Cerrato is also a Fellow of the Leadership Innovation for Faculty Transformation (LIFT) program, which was created by the UNM Office of the Vice President for Research in 2022. The LIFT program provides concrete support and mentoring to a small cohort of tenured, research-intensive faculty, enabling them to pursue opportunities and professional development that will increase their own professional standing as well as the university’s renown on a national level in research, scholarship, and inclusive practices. As a LIFT Fellow, Cerrato pursued the creation of the UNM CHANGES Center, which has resulted in this new multi-million-dollar NIH award.
“We coalesced the ARID Institute at UNM to build new partnerships with New Mexico communities and to create bridges across research programs that had been tackling the challenges of climate change individually. UNM CHANGES is exemplary of the outcomes we hope to achieve with the ARID Institute — a strongly interdisciplinary center that will work together with our communities to improve health and vitality,” Rudgers said.
Top image: UNM CHANGES Center logo designed by artist Mallery Quetawki
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