Health
Former USC Intern Fights for Cleaner Air
By Meghan Lewit on November 19, 2009 7:28 AM
- Otana Jakpor leads a training seminar on community demographic mapping for USC faculty and staff.
- Photo/Sara Reeve
Fifteen-year-old Otana Jakpor’s essay on how she spent her time with USC would include leading demonstrations on how to map demographic data and conducting research on diesel emissions from locomotives and other rail yard equipment.
The high school senior recently interned at the Southern California Environmental Health Sciences Center directed by Frank Gilliland at the Keck School of Medicine of USC, where she focused on using U.S. Census Bureau information to map and study the demographics of populations living near rail yards.
“I started off by reading a lot. I learned about the Los Angeles ports, goods movement and how trucks and trains pollute the air,” said Jakpor, who woke at 5 a.m. every day to take the train from her home in Riverside to the USC Health Sciences campus. “I didn’t know about all the health effects that could come from living near a rail yard. It’s really an environmental justice issue.”
By the end of her internship, Jakpor was leading tutorials on how to do the demographic data mapping. In September, she received special recognition from Lisa Jackson, administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, during Jackson’s visit to Los Angeles.
At the three-day Governors’ Global Climate Summit, in front of a crowd of more than 2,000 international attendees, Jackson praised Jakpor for her work on behalf of clean air initiatives, including volunteer work for the American Lung Association.
“I’ve learned a lot about how science can impact regular people and regular communities, and this summer I learned about the importance of community outreach,” Jakpor said. “When people have information, they can use it to make a difference.”
Mentoring such a young person with a passion for environmental health issues has been inspiring, said Andrea Hricko, associate professor of preventive medicine at the Keck School and director of community outreach at the Southern California Environmental Health Sciences Center.
“We have been discussing creative methods of career development in our center,” Hricko said. “Working with a dynamic, intelligent student like Otana is perfect.”
Jakpor has become accustomed to being singled out for her unusual combination of youth and expertise. Her interest in environmental health began several years ago as she watched her mother struggle with chronic asthma.
She began to do research and, at 13 years old, presented the findings of her homemade experiment on exposure to ozone emitted by air purifiers to the California Air Resources Board.
Since then, she has been a featured speaker at a number of scientific meetings and conferences and has received awards from the Discovery Channel and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
She was honored by the Environmental Protection Agency with a 2007 President’s Environmental Youth Award and has earned recognition from members of Congress and former President George Bush.
“At these presentations, I talk about what’s important to me as a young person,” Jakpor said. “I don’t say anything novel, but people pay attention when a young person says something about these environmental health issues.”
Rob McConnell, professor of preventive medicine at the Keck School and deputy director of the USC/UCLA Children’s Environmental Health Center, approached Jakpor after seeing her at a meeting of the American Thoracic Society in May.
“It was immediately clear to me that Otana was a student we wanted to know better and whose interests we wanted to nurture,” McConnell said. “I urged her to pursue a summer internship at our USC Center so that she could put her interests and skills into practice.”
Jakpor said she wants to attend medical school after college and plans to continue her advocacy for clean air.
TAGS: environment, research
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Los Angeles Times featured the USC Rossier School’s centennial gala, which took place February 1. USC President Steven B. Sample was honored with the Global Education Leadership Award, and USC alumna Cindy McCain was honored with the Dean’s Alumni Achievement Award. “It’s rare for someone who’s lived as long as I have in politics with my husband to be speechless, but I truly am,” McCain said. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa introduced Sample, recounting his work in raising USC’s stature globally, being open to international students, and understanding USC’s position in Los Angeles as “the gateway to Asia and Latin America.” Nearly 350 people attended the event, including Sen. John McCain; Ed Roski, chairman of the USC Board of Trustees; Barbara and Roger Rossier, for whom the Rossier School is named; John Katzman, Princeton Review founder and benefactor of an endowed chair at the Rossier School; and alumni and longtime USC supporters Debbie and J. Terrence Lanni and Verna Dauterive.
The Chronicle of Higher Education included USC in a chart on international fundraising by higher education institutions. USC has received $2.9 million from international philanthropic funds, and is estimated to have more than 6,000 foreign alumni, the story stated.
The Chronicle of Higher Education featured Paul Debevec of USC’s Institute for Creative Technologies, who won an Academy Award for co-creating a light stage capture device and image-based facial rendering system that has been used in movies like “Avatar.” The award will be presented at a formal dinner on February 20, the story noted. Asked whether the technology could be applied to education, Debevec said: “Absolutely, yes. Maybe there’s a little rendering of a chemistry professor at the side of the screen who smiles at you when you get the question right and frowns when you get the question wrong. [In perhaps 10 years] that computer might, through its Web cam, look back at you, see where you’re looking on the screen, see how engaged you are, and actually adapt itself to trying to teach you in the way that it seems to be working the best. Just like one-on-one tutoring.”
The Chronicle of Higher Education featured linguist Paul Frommer of the USC Marshall School, who created the language Na’vi for the Golden Globe-winning movie “Avatar.” “Doing this kind of work as an academic is not going to advance your research reputation. It’s not going to result in publications in peer-reviewed journals,” Frommer said. “But it just may push the world forward in the way it’s turning on young people to the wonders of language”
Los Angeles Times reported that the 22nd annual USC Libraries Scripter Award was given to “Up in the Air” novelist Walter Kirn and to USC alumnus Jason Reitman and Shelton Turner, who adapted Kirn’s book for the screen. Los Angeles Times ran a second story about the Scripter Award.
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