Animals are often faced with the dilemma of prioritizing individual survival for the benefit of future offspring or risking danger for the success of current offspring. These trade-offs can often be driven by the impact of stressors in early life, such as extreme weather and sibling competition. This study uses a captive colony of Zebra finches to determine how early life stress impacts parental provisioning behaviors and personality traits of parents. We hypothesize that birds who have been exposed to early life stressors will make decisions in parental provisioning strategies that differ of those who did not experience stress as fledgings due to the alteration of life history traits. Because high stress early in life may result in reduced lifespan, we predict that young birds with early life stress would invest more in reproduction, and be more aggressive and bolder in their parental strategies. Using social aggression and provisioning data collected from videos in the captive colony, we compared parents from high and low stress groups. With this study we hope to better understand how behaviors can vary with early life history tradeoffs between self-motivated and offspring-motivated behaviors.

While only six percent of children in Los Angeles (LA) county have asthma, twenty percent of that group is made up of Black and Latinx children, most of whom are from South Los Angeles. This can be attributed to the high number of airborne toxins in South LA. In this project, I seek to understand why there is a disproportionate burden of childhood asthma in South LA through an investigation of social and environmental factors. Some examples of factors that are central to my research include exposure to violence (ETV), pollution in the form of particulate matter, and socioeconomic status (SES). I plan on using secondary data from environmental science databases such as Purple Air, OEHHA, and CHIS. This process of data collection will also help me identify the areas that have the highest disproportionalities and assist in advocation at the local government level. I employ the conceptual framework “action on the social determinants of health analysis” provided by the WHO, to lay out how social determinants of health influence health equity. In addition to using this framework, I plan to use and collect visual data such as “photography” and “film” as a photovoice project to aid in the creation of cultural material and increase visibility on environmental and social disproportionalities in South LA, and ground-truth existing data.

Organotin complexes are an emerging class of ubiquitous, anthropogenic environmental pollutants. These materials can be described as chemical complexes in which a compound contains a covalent tin-carbon bond that is also bound to organic or inorganic ligands. Studies have detected the contaminant in water, sedimentations, human blood, and manufactured products. The primary exposure route in humans is ingestion. The effects induced after ingestion are largely unknown. Preliminary human health studies have shown organotin complexes to induce cardiotoxicity and immunotoxicity. Few studies have investigated the neurotoxicological effects induced after exposure. Therefore, we have designed an experiment to study the varying concentrations (i.e., dose-response) and exposure time periods of tributyltin (TBT) and its degradants (dibutyltin (DBT) and butyltin (MBT)) on neurodegenerative effects in SH-SY5Y neuroblastoma cells. We also included the starting materials of TBT (tin (II) chloride and tin (II) oxide) as controls in the toxicity study. Our preliminary results show that TBT, DBT, and MBT induces oxidative stress in human cells more than the starting materials. The mechanism is due to spontaneous generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) from organotin complexes suspended in water. Additional evidence of toxicity includes damage to cytoskeletal structure and apoptosis. We conclude that organotin complexes may be riskier to humans in the middle of its product life cycle because TBT induces more toxicity than its starting materials or its degradants where its exposure to users is prominent. More research is needed to understand the systemic effects after exposure to organotin to provide data for regulatory action.

Heat stress (HS) has a negative impact during the final third gestation of ewe’s pregnancy, and studies demonstrate that it also affects the fetus due to placental insufficiency causing a deficiency of nutrients and oxygen in the fetus. Studies consistently show that ewes exposed to HS during pregnancy present a decrease in milk production, protein and lactase concentration. However, the effect on colostrum production, milk production, and mammary gland development has not been reported effectively. Similarly, the progeny of these ewes present an increase in mortality, decrease in birth weight, and survival rates. The impact of HS continues in different stages of the production of the offspring. This study aims to determine the effect of HS during the last third of gestation in ewes' pregnancy on colostrum production, milk production, and mammary gland development. As well as study the impact on the growth performance, colostrum and milk concentration and production, and mammary gland development of the offspring. Columbian-Rambouillet crossbred ewes with singleton pregnancy will be housed in two controlled environment chambers: 1) heat stress (HS: THI = 73 to 85) and2) thermoneutral (TN: THI = 68). During the experiment, colostrum concentrations, milk composition, and production will be measured on the ewes. Mammary gland development will be determined using ultrasound and DNA samples. After the parturition, colostrum absorption, growth performance, and milk performance in offspring will be studied in purpose of evaluating first generation offspring.