The University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo will be hosting its first graduate student symposium entitled “Integrated Community Design: Health, Environment and Culture” on March 18. The event is free and open to the public.
The symposium will focus on connections between health, environment and culture in Hilo and their roles in developing practical solutions across vulnerable populations, Hawaiʻi’s youth and community-based research.
Highlights of the symposium include a keynote address by Matthew Nagato (TEDx Talk at right), communications director for the Hawaiʻi Primary Care Association. Nagato wrote and produced the documentary Ola, which examines the widespread social factors that facilitated Hawaiʻi’s healthcare crisis and was an official selection in the 2013 Hawaiʻi International Film Festival Spring Showcase.
“Our graduate students, faculty and community members are well positioned to affect positive change in our community’s health,” says Jonathan Koch, a postdoctoral researcher from UH Hilo’s tropical conservation biology and environmental science graduate program.
The symposium also will include panel presentations on the three symposium sub-themes, followed by breakout sessions.
Event information
“Integrated Community Design: Health, Environment, and Culture” will be held on Friday, March 18, 9 a.m.–4 p.m. in UH Hilo’s Vulcan Gym.
For more information, contact Māhealani Jones.
—By Susan Enright
