Launching Careers While Working to Protect Vulnerable People From Extreme Heat
U of A graduate students are aiding the Heat and Health Resilience Innovation Consortium, which is helping prepare them for careers in medicine and public health.
Kyle Peeples, left, and Sydney Mintalar are graduate students who are getting a head start in their careers by congributing to the Heat and Health Innovation Consortium.
Adam Brooks / U of A College of Medicine – Phoenix
Kyle Peeples knows heat. Having grown up in the Phoenix area, he has endured intense summer heat waves. But the first-year University of Arizona College of Medicine – Phoenix medical student says the full impact of extreme heat was not quite clear to him until he started volunteering with Street Medicine Phoenix, which is operated by the U of A Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health.
Administering care there to those experiencing homelessness put a human face to the ways extreme heat can magnify health problems, he said.
“It’s driven home how difficult it can be to survive these heat waves,” Peeples said. “It’s informed the way I see patients and their everyday struggles.”
Peeples is one of a small group of U of A graduate students who are aiding the Heat and Health Resilience Innovation Consortium, a transdisciplinary project designed to protect those most vulnerable to extreme heat while providing training for the next generation of talent.
The consortium is among six teams funded by the U of A Office of Research and Partnership’s Big Idea Challenge, receiving up to $250,000 over two years to accelerate projects with potential to transform lives and shape policy. Co-led by Dr. Amelia Gallitanoand Dr. Freya Spielberg from the College of Medicine – Phoenix, the team brings together experts, students and community and municipal partners to develop an ecosystem of heat-protection solutions.