Administrative Core

ABSTRACT - ADMINISTRATIVE CORE The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Environmental Research and Translation for Health (EaRTH) Center advances understanding and prevention of environmental exposures that impact vulnerable populations and promote health equity. Our Administrative Core (Admin Core) provides supportive, strategic, and responsive activities to meet the needs of our EaRTH Center community and advance EaRTH goals and directions. Established in 2020 as UCSF’s first ever NIEHS P30 Center, our Admin Core developed a robust infrastructure, collaborative leadership, monitoring and feedback systems, and communications support to translate and disseminate our science to our target audiences of health care learners and professionals and California policymakers. Our Admin Core has supported 43 funded projects, 92 partnerships, and career development for 29 early-stage investigator/postdoc affiliate members and 10 nursing/medical students, with $69 million (total costs) secured in environmental health funding by full and affiliate EaRTH members ensuring our Center’s success despite launching at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. This Core is comprised of various committees, support staff, mentors, and monitoring systems that enable effective communication, engagement, and collaboration within the Center. The Admin Core facilitated the development of several new initiatives integrated into our renewal to accelerate our progress including: the Postdoc Accelerator Program in Environmental Health, two new multidisciplinary co-labs (Smoke from wildfires: Advancing Reproductive Knowledge Program (SPARK) and Center to Advance Toxicology and Chemical Hazard Assessment (CATCHA)) and enhanced funding mechanisms for Core services and networking incentives. The Admin Core provides strong administrative support, leads collaborative and communications activities, fosters collaborative research, builds research capacity, cultivates careers in environmental health, and conducts rigorous assessments to evaluate the productivity and effectiveness of EaRTH Center activities and identify areas for improvement. Additionally, the Admin Core with the Translational Research Support Core and Community Engagement Core, oversee and coordinate robust communications support for our community to translate and communicate their work via multiple channels (press releases, blogs, social media) to our target and lay audiences to maximize our impact. With strong leadership, deep experience, and a track record of success, our Admin Core is well positioned to guide EaRTH over the next five years, leveraging UCSF’s rich basic, epidemiological, translational and clinical research environment to continue to catalyze environmental health investigations and discoveries.