A number of faculty from UC Santa Cruz are available to discuss aspects of the post-Hurricane Katrina story. Their fields of expertise range from the science of climate change to the racial implications of the story; their contact information follows:
Climate Change and Destructive Storms
Lisa Sloan
Professor of Earth sciences; Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies
Office: 831-459-3693
Email: lcsloan@earthsci.ucsc.edu
PIO contact: Tim Stephens, 831-459-4352, stephens@ucsc.edu
Expertise: Sloan is an expert on climate change and can discuss the implications of global warming with respect to hurricanes, El Niño, drought, and other weather-related phenomena.
Infectious Diseases (Cholera)
Fitnat Yildiz
Assistant Professor of Environmental Toxicology
Office: 831-459-1588
Email: yildiz@etox.ucsc.edu
PIO contact: Tim Stephens, 831-459-4352, stephens@ucsc.edu
Expertise: Yildiz studies the organism that causes cholera and how it persists and survives in the environment between outbreaks. Cholera is a bacterial disease transmitted by contaminated water. No major outbreaks of cholera have occurred in the United States since 1911, but there have been sporadic cases and cholera bacteria have been isolated from Gulf Coast waters.
Water Pollution
Russell Flegal
Professor of Environmental Toxicology
Office: 831-459-4719
Email: flegal@etox.ucsc.edu
PIO contact: Tim Stephens, 831-459-4352, stephens@ucsc.edu
Expertise: Flegal is an expert on environmental contamination due to lead, mercury, and other heavy metals, especially in aquatic systems. He can discuss the toxicology of heavy metals and trace elements in humans and ecosystems.
Race
Aida Hurtado
Professor of Psychology
Phone: 831-818-8593
Email: aida@ucsc.edu
PIO contact: Jennifer McNulty, 831-459-4399; jmcnulty@ucsc.edu
Expertise: A social psychologist and director of the UCSC Chicano/Latino Rsearch Center, Hurtado is an expert on the Chicano experience in the United States. She is available to discuss issues of race and how Katrina will affect immigrants in the area.
David Wellman
Professor of Community Studies
Phone: 831-439-2695 or 510-642-0813
Email: wellman@ucsc.edu
PIO contact: Jennifer McNulty, 831-459-4399; jmcnulty@ucsc.edu
Coauthor of Whitewashing Race: The Myth of a Color-Blind Society, Wellman specializes in the institutional roots of racism in the United States. He is available to discuss race, racism, labor, and civil rights law. Wellman is also a research sociologist at the Institute for the Study of Social Change at UC Berkeley.
Paul Ortiz
Associate Professor of Community Studies
Phone: 831-459-5583
Email: portiz@ucsc.edu
PIO contact: Jennifer McNulty, 831-459-4399; jmcnulty@ucsc.edu
A U.S. historian specializing in race, class, and social organizing, Ortiz has conducted extensive research in the South. He is available to discuss race, politics, and culture in the South from both a historical and contemporary point of view.
