Alumna Sophia Rodriguez receives Chancellor’s Doctoral Incentive Program Award

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Sophia Rodriguez's passion for public health took a decisive turn as she shifted her research to chronic asthma in children from Mexican and Purépecha communities near the Salton Sea.

What began as her graduate thesis at San Diego State University became a mission to confront environmental health challenges by combining her public health and Latin American studies, now supported by a California State University fellows program to help prepare doctoral students for future faculty positions.

Having grown up in Los Angeles, where she and her brother experienced asthma, Rodriguez ('21 M.A./MPH) understands the impact of the built environment on health. However, her research uncovered starkly different health challenges in the rural eastern Coachella Valley.

“It's not just asthma — it's also allergies we're seeing and then there have been a lot of journal articles that have come out recently since 2020, about arsenic in the drinking water in certain areas in this area, specifically in the mobile home parks,” she said.

Her deep interest in environmental health issues led her to pursue a doctorate in medical anthropology at the University of California, Riverside, where she is currently enrolled. Her work and research takes place in the Eastern Coachella Valley where she has worked with residents there since her dual masters thesis in 2020.

“When we're talking about global health, public health or biomedical research, we oftentimes might overlook the community's knowledge production and the community's understanding of their health because they're the ones embodying it,” Rodriguez said. “They're experiencing it and they're living it, especially when it comes to environmental health inequities and environmental health calamities.”

To advance her research, first-generation student Rodriguez was selected as a 2024-25 California State University Chancellor’s Doctoral Incentive Program (CDIP) Fellow. The CDIP award supports those pursuing tenure-track faculty positions and research within the CSU system, offering mentorship and research funding. 

Rodriguez is among five CDIP Fellows from SDSU in the 2024-25 cohort. Additional fellows are Patricia Dionicio (Public Health), Marina Brewster Katague and Alana Roberta Lopez (both Public Health, SDSU and University of California San Diego) and Kevin Perez (Bilingual Education).

Rodriguez said the award will help her expand her research to focus on "environmental health calamities as a whole."

With Associate Professor Ann Marie Cheney (co-chair of Rodriguez’s dissertation committee), at the University of California, Riverside, Rodriguez began exploring childhood asthma and looked at how parents navigate and manage care for their kids and caregivers. This research appears in the NIH National Library of Medicine Pub Med online resource.

“My research has expanded to environmental health calamities as a whole,” Rodriguez said. 

Ramona Pérez, director of the Center for Latin American Studies and Rodriguez’s mentor said, “Sophia is dedicated to the opportunities that the CSU provides historically marginalized communities, especially Latinas and other women of color.”

Since her master's program at San Diego State University, she continues to go back to that support system. Rodriguez said, “Doctora Pérez has been really pivotal in supporting me in each step of my doctoral to now career path.”

Environmental health inequities

In the landscape of the Salton Sea, as the climate starts to warm, toxic sediment evaporates and is dispersed into the air. Residents are inhaling the toxic dust. Studies have shown that the dust exacerbates or causes asthma. 

“My work is also exploring this idea of managing waste; managing toxins. Is there really a safe amount that the government can say is okay for residents to continuously live in, while on the other hand we're hearing a lot of testimonials from the community that this is impeding on their quality of life,” Rodriguez said. 

Her work centers around working with these communities and talking to the people who are experiencing the effects of the climate issues and how they seek and receive health care in the region. Researchers (looking at EPA levels, for example) are working to determine how to mitigate the experiences impacting the community daily. 

Beyond her research, Rodriguez works in the Coachella Valley Free Clinic with the UCR School of Medicine, which provides free health care to residents on a monthly basis. This work instills a sense of service and connection. The clinic is a partnership with Unidas Por Salud, community health workers or promotores. She considers herself a researcher, but also a scholar-activist which combines her work with the community today.

She values all people having “the right to clean air, to clean water, to clean earth,” which drives her to research who is valued more than others and why. “It impacts low income and disadvantaged communities the most,” she said.

Lately, the community she researches with has used the  word “dignity” and what it means to have a dignified life. In spite of hardships, Rodriguez believes that every person deserves a dignified life. She hopes her research will aid those in need and cement the necessity of researchers to co-create with community members affected by things like environmental inequalities.

Future Plans

Rodriguez would like to teach at a CSU campus — preferably one of the Hispanic-Serving Institutions. She can envision her career in anthropology, geography, or Latin American studies. With the health and humanities aspect that she enjoys, she can also see herself working at a school of medicine as a medical anthropologist. 

“I think for me, it's that continuous curiosity that drives me to continue to do what I'm doing.”