Letter from the Director, Spring 2026
Dear Colleagues,
As we close another academic year, I find myself returning to a theme that runs through this issue: research is, at its heart, a collaborative act. The work we are proudest of rarely happens in isolation. It happens when a curious undergraduate asks to get involved, when an engineer and a public health scientist discover a shared problem, when a question that matters locally turns out to matter globally.
You'll see that spirit throughout these pages. Grace Bell's path from a community college transfer student to a postgraduate researcher began with a single act of initiative — and the mentors willing to meet it. Britta Berg-Johansen's NSF-funded wearable, designed to prevent back pain before it starts, draws engineering and public health together around the lived realities of farmworkers in our own community. Suzanne Phelan's work with the World Health Organization reminds us that questions studied here on the Central Coast can help shape guidelines for mothers and infants around the world. Different scales, the same goal: to do rigorous work that improves people's lives.
That conviction is also what drives an announcement I'm excited to share. This year, the Center for Health Research formally launched our new Faculty Affiliate Program and Senior Research Affiliate Program. These programs are designed to lower the barriers to interdisciplinary collaboration by making it easier for faculty across colleges and departments to connect with one another, access shared research infrastructure and expertise, mentor students alongside our team, and pursue the kind of cross-cutting health research that no single discipline can accomplish alone.
We built this program for established CHR affiliates, as well as for the colleagues who haven't yet found their entry point into health research but sense that their work belongs in the conversation. Whether your expertise lies in engineering, statistics, the social sciences, the humanities, the health professions, or somewhere else, there is very likely a place for you here, and a question we'd be better at answering together.
You can learn more about the affiliate programs, eligibility, and how to get involved on our website at https://healthresearch.calpoly.edu/get-involved. I encourage you to explore it and to share it with colleagues who might be looking for exactly this kind of home for their research.
To our students, faculty affiliates, staff, funders, and community partners: thank you. Your curiosity, generosity, and hard work are what make CHR what it is. I look forward to seeing what we build together in the year ahead.
Sincerely,
Alison K. Ventura, PhD, LEC
Director, Cal Poly Center for Health Research
Professor, Department of Kinesiology and Public Health
