Research

At the forefront of discovery and progress, SDSU Imperial Valley is committed to advancing knowledge and driving transformative solutions in support of student success and our region. Our dynamic research environment fosters collaboration across disciplines, empowering students, faculty and partners to innovate and address some of the most pressing challenges in our bi-national region and the state of California. Explore how our work is making a difference and advancing the boundaries of knowledge.

Regional Resilience Center

The Regional Resilience (R2) Center provides a dedicated space for faculty to conduct student-assisted research and collaborate with community partners on resilience issues, such as crime prevention, impacting Imperial County. All collaborations with local agencies will be research-to-practice partnerships, a type of partnership in which researchers collect data and publish research findings to create evidence-based practices and policies beneficial to the community and university research. The center is led by Jeffery Osborne (principal investigator) assistant professor in criminal justice, David Kanaan (co-principal investigator), associate professor in public affairs and Huan Qin, associate professor in statistics (co-principal investigator).

Binational Laboratory for Molecular Toxicology

In partnership with the Autonomous University of Baja California, Mexico (UABC), SDSU Imperial Valley launched its binational molecular toxicology research laboratory. Researchers from both institutions will have a dedicated space to educate and train students who will serve as scientists and professionals in the Southern California and Baja California (Mexico) region. All data results are aimed to inform the efforts of local organizations and government agencies to minimize public health issues. The initiative is led by Linda Lara-Jacobo, assistant professor in public health.

Transborder Scholar Collaborative

Launched in October 2023, SDSU Imperial Valley faculty members, Vannessa Falcon Orta, assistant professor in education, Gilberto Reyes, history instructor, and Efren Lopez, assistant professor in english, introduced the Transborder Scholar Collaborative, a research initiative dedicated to the social justice of transborder students in education along the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. As part of the initiative, the team embarked on a mission to support and guide students who reside in the U.S.-Mexico border research projects to implement border-conscious teaching practices.

Improving Biomass Burning Estimates in Mexico

SDSU and SDSU Imperial Valley faculty members establishedthe research initiative, “Improving Biomass Burning Estimates in Mexico”, to create annual biomass burning inventories using VIIRS satellite data to estimate fuel consumption and smoke production for air quality models. Ground-truthing through community engagement will enhance the accuracy of vegetation data, fire intensity, and duration for these emissions estimates. The research project is funded through the California Air Resources Board and led by Miguel Angel Zavala Perez, associate professor in environmental health (principal investigator), Linda Lara-Jacobo, assistant professor in public health (co-principal investigator), and Atsushi Nara, associate professor in geography (co-principal investigator).

Increasing Access to Continuous Glucose Monitoring for Patients with Type 2Diabetes

Clinical practice guidelines recommend the use of continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) in Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes care for most patients, yet inequities in CGM use threaten to exacerbate existing diabetes disparities. As part of the Imperial County Clinical Research Network (ICCRN), SDSU Imperial Valley nursing faculty will directly address this need by evaluating the impact of a system-level, provider-focused intervention on CGM prescription rates and diabetes outcomes for patients with Type 2 diabetes in Imperial County. The initiative is led by Shiloh Williams, assistant professor in nursing (principal investigator). 

Taking on the Heat: Community Action to Adapt an Extreme Heat Intervention

The overarching goals of the research project is to reduce the disparate health impacts of extreme
heat in disproportionately impacted populations. The Prevention Research Center (PRC) will be organized into a PRC Center Component (PRC-CC), a PRC Core Research Project Component (PRC-RP) and a PRC Network Component (PRC-N).

The PRC-RP will focus on the chronic disease prevention priority category of reducing UV overexposure and mitigating the effects of extreme heat. SDSU and SDSU Imperial Valley researchers will address the science gap of how communities interested in using evidence-based interventions (EBI) for mitigating the health effects of extreme heat can improve uptake through implementation science methods. The research is led by Eyal Oren, professor of epidemiology and biostatistics, (principal investigator) and Miguel Zavala Perez, associate professor in environmental health (co-principal investigator). 

Ethical Sewer Research (ESR) Workshop Series

With the recent advancement and application of wastewater analysis to inform public health action following the initial waves of COVID-19, the sustainable and ethical future of using waste as a health resource has emerged as a promising opportunity for future practices. This series of workshops, led by Devrim Kaya, assistant professor in environmental health (co-principal investigator), will address the areas of professional practice that arise at the emerging intersection of public health, environmental engineering, community engagement, and water resources.