The two studies are:

• "Health Risks and Cross-Border Environmental Exposure: A Binational Study of the San Diego-Tijuana-Rosarito Pacific Ocean Coastline," published in Environmental Challenges. This study examines health risks along the coastline shared by the United States and Mexico, and was a collaborative effort with community-based organizations on both sides of the border (One Coastal Community) and the Socio-Environmental Tijuana River Project that Calderón Villarreal directs. The research focuses on the unique environmental health challenges along this shared coastline and the associated health risks. The study is particularly relevant due to the current environmental crisis surrounding the binational Tijuana River, which impacts communities on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border.
• "Considering Water, Sanitation and Hygiene as a Valuable Component of Harm Reduction," published in the Harm Reduction Journal. This paper advocates for integrating water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services into harm reduction frameworks to support marginalized populations. It’s the summary of Calderón Villarreal’s contribution in the intersection between environmental health and substance use, based on her research conducted among U.S.-Mexico border communities.

Calderón Villarreal is a medical doctor whose work focuses on the intersection of environmental health and social equity in the binational region that includes San Diego. After earning her undergraduate and master’s degrees from institutions in Mexico, she finished her Ph.D. at the UC San Diego-San Diego State University Joint Doctoral Program in Public Health.

Media Contact

Brian Hiro, Communications Specialist
bhiro@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7306

The program began as an idea from Marilyn Huerta, the college's marketing, communications and engagement specialist. Huerta envisioned creating a student-led leadership and communications team to highlight the work and impact of CEHHS programs. She helped develop the program and guided the launch of its first group of student ambassadors.

The inaugural team includes four students who are helping expand the college’s visibility while building professional skills that will support their future careers.

Ariana Saenz hosts the college’s new podcast series, “CEHHS Unplugged,” in which she interviews health and education professionals about their backgrounds, programs they teach, career pathways and words of wisdom.

“Through the ‘CEHHS Unplugged’ podcast and the ambassador program, I’m proud to help amplify student voices and showcase the incredible community within our college,” Saenz said.

Daniel Lopez launched the CEHHS Student & Success Story Series, producing written profiles that showcase the journeys and accomplishments of CEHHS students and alumni.

Serving as the team’s lead ambassador, Natalya Taseveki helps coordinate student engagement efforts and supports events and activities across the college, including programming connected to Scholars in Wellness and Innovation Fast-Track (SWIFT) Health Programs, kinesiology, human development, social work, education, nursing, speech-language pathology and public health.

The team’s digital presence is led by Audrie Smith, who started the college’s TikTok account and helps manage CEHHS social media platforms, sharing content that highlights events, fundraisers, student life and college achievements.

The ambassadors support a wide range of initiatives across the college. They assist the CEHHS dean, Jennifer Ostergren, during events honoring students who earned dean’s list recognition and participate in outreach and recruitment activities such as Cougar Blue Day and Discover CSUSM.

They also contribute to campuswide efforts such as Giving Day and Cougar Crowdfunding. Last semester, they hosted a student engagement “Giving Tree” event to encourage philanthropy and community support.

Beyond large events, the ambassadors attend student organization meetings and departmental activities to photograph and document student experiences across CEHHS. The team collaborates with the college’s Committee for Inclusivity, Diversity and Equity (CIDE) to support outreach and networking opportunities for students.

Participation in the program also emphasizes professional development. Through the CSUSM Career Center, the ambassadors are building career portfolios, strengthening résumé and interview skills, participating in workshops and attending the university’s Etiquette Dinner experience.

In addition, they remain active across campus through initiatives with Associated Students, Inc. (ASI) and the university’s Orientation Team.

Huerta continues to mentor and supervise the team members as they develop leadership and communication skills while serving as ambassadors for the college.

College leaders hope the program will continue to grow in the coming years, giving more students opportunities to gain real-world experience while helping share the stories and impact of CEHHS programs.

Media Contact

Brian Hiro, Communications Specialist

bhiro@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7306

Diagnosed with hepatitis C, very unusual for a child that young, Jaenisch had been told by doctors that if he didn’t get a liver transplant, he wouldn’t live past 30. That disturbing prediction had hung over his adolescence and early adulthood like a black cloud, casting a pall over every doctor’s appointment and health episode.  

Now here it was, 2016, the year when Jaenisch turned 30, and the doctor’s assessment was feeling eerily prescient. He had not been able to procure a new liver, and his condition was deteriorating rapidly. To borrow his gallows humor, he was as “yellow as a Simpsons character” because of jaundice. He collectively spent more than six weeks in the hospital as a result of various complications from end-stage liver disease.  

“Every single day that year, I had a 30 to 60 percent chance of dying,” Jaenisch said.  

That he didn’t die, that he received a liver transplant on Dec. 3 (only a few months before his 31^st birthday), Jaenisch considers to be nothing short of a miracle. Given the gift of fresh life in his fourth decade, he elected to devote it to ensuring that no one else has to go through the ordeal that he did. 

Three years later, Jaenisch returned to Cal State San Marcos – the university where he had earned a bachelor’s degree in social sciences in 2008 – to pursue a master’s in public health. He now works as the director of education and outreach for Open Biopharma Research and Training Institute, a Carlsbad nonprofit whose mission is to reduce the cost of pharmaceuticals like the ones that helped keep him alive while he waited for the miracle liver.  

More significantly, Jaenisch is a tireless patient advocate, dedicating countless hours to multiple organizations that share a goal of ending the scourge of hep C. He has transformed adversity into community impact, leveraging his CSUSM education to improve lives and strengthen public health across the state.  

“Richard is truly a special person,” said Carrie Frenette, the executive director of global medical affairs for Gilead Sciences and Jaenisch’s liver doctor for nine years starting in 2012.  

“I can’t think of anyone else who has so much expertise and understanding in their medical problems, advocates for themselves and then goes on to advocate for others. Honestly, it made it so easy to care for him, and it made it mean even more when he got his transplant and was healthy again.” 

'I don’t know how you are still alive...’ 

It all started with brown pee. 

Jaenisch was a normal suburban kid growing up in Rancho Bernardo. When he was 12, his parents signed him up for a summer tennis camp. It was a sweltering day and he didn’t drink a lot of water; when he returned home and went to the bathroom, his urine was dark.  

His father took him to Rady Children’s Hospital, where he was put through a battery of tests on his kidneys, spleen and liver. The diagnosis of hepatitis C virus (HCV) stunned them, as did the subsequent wallop of bad news: After the rest of the family was tested, it was discovered that he contracted the infection at birth from his mother, who also was found to have HCV.   

Nothing, though, could have prepared Jaenisch for the haunting prognostication of liver transplant or death.  

“That shook me to my core,” he said. “My childhood was fundamentally changed. And my mom heard that, too, because she was in the room. It’s awkward hearing your own future from your child’s diagnosis. We shared a very odd relationship in that way.” 

At the time, in the late 1990s, there was no cure for HCV, only experimental treatments with low success rates and punishing side effects. Jaenisch’s mom started the drugs – interferon and ribavirin – almost immediately, but as a child, Jaenisch wasn’t eligible. The primary impact of HCV on his teenage years was that he was forced to cease participation in all sports and PE classes (because the disease can be transmitted through blood) and he began to suffer from a type of brain fog named hepatic encephalopathy (HE).   

After graduating from Rancho Bernardo High School, he attended Palomar College for two years, then transferred to CSUSM. There, he threw himself into classes in economics, history and political science – not only to satiate his hunger for knowledge but also to distract himself from the fear that constantly lingered at the back of his mind.  

“I wanted to live as much of my life as I could before everything hit the fan,” Jaenisch said. “Because I knew what was coming. When someone gives you a death sentence, you remember it, to say the least.” 

Jaenisch graduated from CSUSM in December 2008. Only a few weeks later, the trouble started. He attempted to begin the same treatment program his mom had undergone, but because of denials by his mom's employer, he wasn’t able to do so for about nine months.  

Once the snags finally had been resolved, the 12-week regimen of interferon and ribavirin didn’t work. He experienced all the negative effects of the drugs – in his case, painful inflammation and wild emotional swings – without any decrease in his body’s viral load. A second round at double the dosage early in 2010 similarly yielded no response.  

By this point, more than a decade after his HCV first had been discovered, Jaenisch had descended to the most serious stage on the scale that measures liver fibrosis, or scarring. F0 equates to no fibrosis, F1 is mild, F2 is moderate, and so on. He was at F4, which indicates the presence of cirrhosis, a condition in which the liver is extensively scarred and permanently damaged.   

Jaenisch had reached the dreaded end-stage liver disease, which essentially meant that the ticking of his clock was only accelerating. All the while, he was encountering roadblocks in his career. He had hoped to enter the niche field of traffic economics, but graduating into the Great Recession scuttled that plan. For a time, he held a job in tech support that he found unfulfilling. 

The work that did bring Jaenisch joy was for a group that offered before- and after-school services for elementary and middle schools in the Poway district of his youth. He envisioned a long-term future in that field but was stymied by both the ailing economy (which led to layoffs) and his illness (he claims he was a victim of disability discrimination but chose to spend his remaining time trying to get better rather than pursue a case.)   

While he tried to piece together enough work to retain his vital health insurance, Jaenisch’s health continued to deteriorate. In 2014, two years into her stint as his liver doctor, Frenette proffered a grim evaluation. 

“She said, ‘I don’t know how you are still alive with this liver,’ ” Jaenisch recalled. “She showed me pictures and was like, ‘Your liver is an old shoe. It is not doing what it’s supposed to do. But you’re still functioning.’ ” 

Every moment of optimism, it seemed, was followed by a stroke of misfortune. He began taking a new drug called Sovaldi (a direct-acting antiviral, or DAA) that was considered a game-changer for HCV patients in that it had an 86% cure rate in six months. Sure enough, Jaenisch’s viral load was approaching zero and his liver was curing. But then he contracted a C. diff bacterial infection (the suspect: spoiled food from a restaurant), which caused acute liver failure and brought his HVC roaring back.  

He later tried another second-generation DAA – Harvoni – that sounded promising but failed in the last week of treatment. As his liver continued to deteriorate, in 2016 he became too sick for treatment and, following a now-common hospitalization, an ER physician gave him outdated medical advice, which resulted in a case of sepsis that nearly killed him. 

End-stage liver disease is typically a rapid descent lasting as little as two years. For Jaenisch, it was an eight-year slog, from age 22 to 30.  

“He was in and out of the hospital multiple times, and he nearly didn’t make it to transplant multiple times,” Frenette said. “I can’t imagine anyone going through it with the courage and strength that he did.” 

Even after the liver transplant, Jaenisch wasn’t out of the woods. The operation addressed the issue of the failing liver, but it didn’t eradicate the HCV (the virus lives in the bloodstream). Frenette advised a treatment plan of Sovaldi, Zepatier and ribavirin, and that pharmaceutical concoction proved to be a magical formula.  

In September 2017, 18 years after the fateful diagnosis, Jaenisch was cured. 

“Honestly, I cried,” Frenette said. “He had been through so much, and to finally get rid of this awful virus that he had lived with his entire life and had caused his liver to fail … I don’t have words.” 

‘I have to be more than a self-advocate' 

It was during one of his dozens of hospital stays that Jaenisch decided on the next course of his life, provided he would live long enough to choose.  

In the fall of 2014, he had been admitted to Sharp Memorial Hospital after the HCV returned via his C. diff infection. His medical team was struggling to lower his levels of bilirubin, a substance found in bile that was causing jaundice, the yellowing of the skin now so familiar to Jaenisch. He knew that ultraviolet rays help break down bilirubin, so he convinced the nurses to bring him outside for an hour a day at peak sun. As he had theorized, his bilirubin numbers declined. 

“It was at that point where I was like, ‘I have to be more than a self-advocate. If I can survive through transplant, I need to go to a Master of Public Health program,’ ” Jaenisch said. “I realized that that path would help me better understand how to become an advocate not only for myself but also for others.” 

His commitment would be nurtured in an environment like CSUSM, as he was accepted into its accelerated MPH program. His time back at the university overlapped with the pandemic, which he took advantage of by choosing as his thesis topic the emergency use authorization of COVID-19 tests.  

“He was very inquisitive and passionate,” said Asherlev Santos, an associate professor of public health and Jaenisch’s thesis adviser. “Sometimes that passion was more visible than the evidence of the inquiry, but all came from a place of helping others in some sort of need. He used his personal and professional experience to spur on what he did for his MPH degree.” 

His master’s allowed him to land his job at Open Biopharma, but it’s passion that mostly fuels Jaenisch in his advocacy connected to HCV. In 2016, while his body was still racked with the disease, he traveled to Sacramento with an organization known as CalHEP to talk to state legislators and raise awareness about viral hepatitis.  

The next year, when Congress was preparing to vote on a bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act, Jaenisch enlisted in the fight. He told his story of overcoming HCV in half a dozen TV interviews, worked at a call center, wrote letters – he did so much that the American Liver Foundation named him its liver champion of the year.  

“I wanted to preserve the things that help people get access to health care,” he said. “Because to me, it saved my life.” 

He also has volunteered for state and local groups such as End the Epidemics, the California Department of Public Health and the Eliminate Hepatitis C San Diego County Initiative. Their shared objective (in line with a goal established by the World Health Organization) is to eliminate hep C by 2030, which means a reduction of new infections by 90% and deaths by 65%. 

And the barriers are much lower than they used to be. Jaenisch says his family spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on treatment and other expenses to keep him alive. Today, treatment could run as cheap as a few hundred dollars, and that’s for more effective drugs, too.  

“I was raised in a middle-class suburban household, and I wouldn’t have known I had hep C if I didn’t pee a brown color,” Jaenisch said. “I’ve always maintained that I think we’re missing a lot of people, and I keep trying to push for us to find them and knock this virus out. We’re taking a lot of steps, and eventually we’ll get there.” 

Thanks to Jaenisch’s focus on access and innovation, those steps are becoming strides – toward a healthier, more equitable future for all. 

Media Contact

Brian Hiro, Communications Specialist

bhiro@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7306

SWIFT, short for Scholars in Wellness and Innovation Fast-Track, is backed by a $10 million grant from Price Philanthropies Foundation. The initiative enables eligible students, including those who earned college credits in high school, to complete a bachelor’s degree in three years while gaining the skills and experience needed to address the region’s growing demand for behavioral health and social service professionals.

“This program is about more than speed – it’s about support, belonging and ensuring that students have the tools to succeed from day one,” said Martha Garcia, senior director of SWIFT. “SWIFT Summer Start creates a community of scholars who are ready to thrive academically, socially and personally.”

During the summer, students enrolled in First-Year Seminar with professor Russ Neuhart, with some also taking credit-bearing math and English courses. Outside the classroom, the program partnered with CSUSM’s Office of First-Year & University Programs to offer activities and workshops designed to build community, strengthen academic skills and familiarize students with campus resources.

Students said they appreciated that the program enabled them to acclimate to the campus, connect with their success coaches and create friendships with peers. 

The inaugural SWIFT Summer Start cohort has been joined this fall by additional students admitted directly to the three-year degree pathway. Forty students in total will pursue degrees in either public health or human development (with a concentration in counseling), each receiving a $4,500 annual scholarship.

“SWIFT reflects CSUSM’s deep commitment to meeting the workforce needs of our region while expanding access and opportunity for our students,” said Jennifer Ostergren, dean of the College of Education, Health and Human Services. “Through its accelerated format, hands-on learning and strong support network, SWIFT prepares graduates to make an immediate and meaningful impact in their communities.”

During the program, students will participate in three summers of experiential learning and internships, earning professional certifications and gaining paid work experience that positions them to enter the workforce immediately upon graduation.

CSUSM’s innovative approach to launching SWIFT earned recognition at the recent “Devvies” awards, which honor standout higher education marketing and communication initiatives.

“This is just the beginning,” Garcia said. “We’re building a model for how higher education can respond quickly and effectively to both student needs and workforce demands.”

Media Contact

Brian Hiro, Communications Specialist

bhiro@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7306

As part of a unique program in the College of Education, Health and Human Services at CSUSM – Scholars in Wellness and Innovation Fast-Track (SWIFT) Health Programs – students at Rancho Buena Vista High School can earn college credit, giving them an early start toward a bachelor’s degree. Courses completed count toward two specialized undergraduate degrees in health and wellness designed to allow students to obtain a degree in as little as three years. 

One is in public health and the other in human development with a concentration in counseling.

“This program allows students to accelerate their career journey in mental and behavioral health through an innovative three-year degree pathway. Starting in high school, students begin earning college credit and will finish with a bachelor’s degree and embedded professional certificates to give them a competitive advantage in the workplace,” CSUSM President Ellen Neufeldt said. “CSUSM is focused on social mobility and empowering students to transform their lives, their families and their communities through the power of higher education. This program is our newest effort to fulfill this mission.”

To kick off the program, Neufeldt and other campus leaders from CSUSM and the Vista Unified School District will participate in a welcoming ceremony for the students on Friday at noon.

"We are thrilled to partner with Cal State San Marcos in order to expand educational pathways for students so that they reach for our vision to become resilient, agile learners and creative problem-solvers who navigate the world with confidence and kindness and eagerly embrace local and global challenges,” said Dr. Matt Doyle, superintendent of Vista Unified.

The degrees are focused on careers and preparing students for the workforce in health and wellness. In addition to a degree, students will graduate with the requirements to obtain in-demand professional certification. Public health students will complete the requirements for a Community Health Education Specialist (CHES) certificate to work as community health educators in various settings. Human development students will complete the requirements to become a wellness coach, which qualifies them in California to provide mental health and wellness support for children and young adults. These certificates set graduates up for advanced work and higher salaries after graduation.

The degrees are also designed to be highly supportive of students. For example, students can receive funding in the summer to complete internships that prepare them for careers in health and wellness when they graduate. Students also progress through their courses with a cohort of fellow students, within a supportive community of expert faculty. As part of this program, CSUSM also offers specialized career advising, employer networking and guest speakers to help students find a position and start their careers upon graduation.  

According to a recent San Diego Workforce Partnership report, the San Diego region needs an additional 18,500 behavioral health professionals to meet industry demands. The dual enrollment program will provide a direct pipeline to support the much-needed workforce.

What: Student welcoming ceremony
When: Friday, Sept. 6, noon-12:30 p.m.
Where: Rancho Buena Vista High School, 1601 Longhorn Drive, Vista, CA 92081
Parking: Available at the school 
More information: All visitors should check in at the front desk.

The grant from The Conrad Prebys Foundation will allow CSUSM to team up with TrueCare, a community health center and nonprofit organization, to provide free health and wellness services in medically underserved areas of North County.

The grant money specifically will go to CSUSM’s College of Education, Health and Human Services. Over the next two years, CEHHS will deploy the funds to hire a project coordinator, buy health care equipment and supplies, and send students into the community with health care professionals from TrueCare and alongside the organization’s fleet of mobile wellness units.

Jennifer Ostergren, dean of CEHHS, said the partnership with TrueCare will give students from the college’s seven disciplines – nursing, kinesiology, public health, human development, social work, speech-language pathology and education – valuable chances to intersect and work together.  

“Through this grant, our students will have a unique opportunity to work together with other disciplines in the college to provide services for and guided by our local community,” Ostergren said. “This type of community-informed and interdisciplinary experience will be transformative for them. I have no doubt our students will walk away from this experience with both a greater understanding of the needs of our local community and a greater appreciation for the many disciplines in the college.”

This grant from The Conrad Prebys Foundation builds off work done through a previous award from the foundation. Last year, CSUSM received almost $150,000 to support its faculty innovation fellows program, through which five faculty members were selected to lead an entrepreneurial project while also serving as an innovation ambassador to other faculty.

One of those innovation fellows was Matt Mincey, a nursing lecturer whose two-year project explored the educational and community benefits of incorporating a mobile health unit into student learning experiences across CEHHS. In May, Mincey established a partnership between CEHHS and TrueCare via a Community Engaged Scholarship grant from CSUSM.

The grant created the CEHHS Mobile Wellness Initiative. On Aug. 12, the initiative held its first event as Mincey and CSUSM nursing and public health students joined TrueCare at its annual health fair and breast milk drive in San Marcos, working collaboratively to provide health promotion and education to families.  

The relationship with TrueCare deepened this summer as Ostergren connected with Michelle D. Gonzalez, TrueCare’s president and CEO and a member of the CEHHS dean’s advisory council and CSUSM president’s university council, as well as Anthony White, the organization’s vice president of government and community affairs. CEHHS and TrueCare applied together for the grant from The Conrad Prebys Foundation.

“We are excited to leverage the mutual benefits of this longstanding relationship to multiply the impact both TrueCare and Cal State San Marcos can have on the community,” White said. “By providing Cal State students with hands-on experience on our mobile units, together, we can close the gap on our regional health care needs and support the future generation of health professionals.”

Christina Holub, chair of CSUSM’s public health department, is serving as project coordinator until a permanent coordinator can be hired. Mincey will continue serving as a faculty lead. Some of the funding will go toward renting a van equipped with medical supplies to complement TrueCare’s larger mobile units, but Ostergren hopes that this project will lead to the college eventually having a mobile clinic of its own.

The program calls for CEHHS to do two to three community events per semester with TrueCare, and hundreds of community members are expected to be served at each event.

“It's important to show that we're not an island,” Ostergren said. “We're working with our partners to make life a little better for our community.”

The award to CSUSM is among grants to 18 clinics across the region, totaling $8.1 million, by The Conrad Prebys Foundation as part of its Strengthening Health Access, Resources and Excellence (SHARE) Initiative. The foundation launched the initiative in April, providing two-year, unrestricted grants of up to $250,000 per year to health clinics that effectively serve communities needing improved health services – especially Indigenous, immigrant and border residents.

“Not only is this project providing essential health services for communities that need them most, but Cal State San Marcos is helping students receive valuable internship opportunities in a field that is struggling to fill health care positions,” said Grant Oliphant, CEO of The Conrad Prebys Foundation. “This is the kind of creative work that our community needs, and we are proud to support this terrific partnership.”

A Master of Social Work student at Cal State San Marcos, Albrecht was beginning a year-long internship with the local health care system of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, marking the early stages of her career aspiration to serve veterans by providing mental health social services.

A decade earlier, however, Albrecht had entered the same center under vastly different circumstances. Then a senior at Vista High School, she and her mother went to Aspire several times as part of a family education group in support of her stepfather, a master sergeant in the Marines who was undergoing treatment for extreme combat PTSD and substance abuse.

At the time, Albrecht was planning to study nursing at UC Santa Cruz, but her stepfather’s struggles with mental health – which bottomed out in a suicide attempt – inspired her to switch to psychology, followed several years later by the social work master’s program at CSUSM.

“When I went to that facility, it brought back all those memories of 10 years prior,” Albrecht said. “And I realized, ‘Wow, I'm doing it. This is happening.’ That was a big moment of realization to me, and it ignited my purpose and my meaning for the goal even more.”

For the singularity of her vision and her all-around excellence as a student, Albrecht this month was named the winner of the Dean’s Outstanding Graduate Award for the College of Education, Health and Human Services. Besides her internship with VA San Diego Healthcare System – which succeeded a previous one with the MiraCosta College equivalent of CSUSM's Cougar Care Network – she volunteered as the vice president, then president, of the CSUSM Social Work Coalition, for which she more than doubled student membership, reduced membership fees and developed the first wellness retreat.

She also represented the MSW program and the university at the National Association of Social Workers-CA Lobby Days, speaking with state policymakers to advocate for legislation that aligns with the mission and values of the social work profession.

Now that she’s graduating, Albrecht intends to take the next natural step in the journey that started when she walked into the Aspire Center all those years ago. Armed with her master’s degree, she and her stepfather, Nicholas San Nicolas, plan to team up to make presentations on military trauma and veterans’ mental health at the local, state and even national level – Albrecht from the perspective of the social work clinician and San Nicolas from the perspective of the veteran who nearly succumbed to mental health woes.

San Nicolas has been a motivational speaker for veteran and youth groups since he retired from the Marines in 2018 after serving for 22 years.

“I’ve been to four veterans’ retreats, I’ve been to many counselors, but I’ve never seen a father and daughter stand in front of veterans or active-duty Marines who are freshly back from combat,” San Nicolas said. “The message of our story and our experiences would be so effective, and that’s what needs to be implemented in many of these VA facilities.”

Albrecht and San Nicolas have been mulling their idea for a while, but it gained momentum last fall when she asked for and received permission to give a talk with her stepfather in the MSW class taught by Shellye Sledge. Albrecht designed a PowerPoint based on course material, with a particular focus on areas that some students were having trouble grasping but that she had intimate knowledge of because of her association with PTSD – then she interviewed San Nicolas about his lived experience with trauma and mental health treatment.

“I think doing it and receiving the feedback from my classmates and my professor was really encouraging and empowering,” Albrecht said. “It reinforced the value of what we want to do and validated the confidence in our competency and ability to do this. That really motivated us to take it farther.”

Albrecht’s hope is not only to educate people in the profession about the telltale signs of PTSD, but also to emphasize the importance of incorporating family members in treatment.

“From what I’ve experienced at the VA, there are very limited opportunities for family to be involved and to learn more about what their family member is going through,” she said. “My dad still talks about that: ‘Without your support, I don’t know if I would have been able to make it this far.’ ”

San Nicolas is the son of a Marine who served 28 years, did two tours of duty in Vietnam and was awarded a Purple Heart. He also was diagnosed with severe combat PTSD. San Nicolas enlisted in the Marines at age 19 in 1997 and, several years later, was part of the initial U.S. invasion of Iraq.

“I was one of the first Marines to step foot over that boundary,” he said.

When he returned from the war to his wife, Nicole, and his stepdaughter (the couple also has two younger sons, Dominic, 19, and Nixon, 9), San Nicolas was a changed man. Albrecht didn’t yet have the language to describe his behavior, so she would lightheartedly refer to him as “crazy.”

“Me and my mom were able to support one another through that time,” Albrecht said. “But he had frequent angry outbursts, and we had to avoid a lot of places and environments. It was very limiting; it really controlled our entire lives. While it was very difficult to understand, I think we projected it as being part of the military experience. We kind of normalized it. But it got to the point where I became very burned out.”

In addition to his PTSD, San Nicolas was dealing with drug and alcohol addiction, making him a “triple threat” in the eyes of the Marines. When he attempted suicide in 2012, he was forced into an inpatient program – a move that both him and military leadership had been avoiding because of the traditional stigma against service members admitting a need for help.

As part of San Nicolas’ treatment, Albrecht and her mother were invited to join a psychoeducational group, which informs family members about mental health or substance abuse disorders and their consequences. Albrecht learned, for example, the psychological reasons behind what she used to consider bizarre behavior by her stepfather in crowded public places, when San Nicolas would get in a confrontation or the family would have to leave, and Albrecht would be left wondering why they couldn’t just enjoy a fun day out like other families.

“I was able to reframe and understand that he is trained to constantly be looking for safety,” she said. “He is trained to constantly protect and defend. He has experienced a lot of things that no human should have to experience. Learning where his symptoms stemmed from helped me to rationalize and understand what we were experiencing. Also, I was able to shift my frame from feeling resentful and victimized to having empathy and compassion and curiosity for what he was experiencing.”

Those were the early seeds of what became Albrecht’s academic and career path. She has applied to be a full-time social worker at VA San Diego Healthcare System, but for now, she and her stepfather are eager to take their work on the road.

“We're successful because of what happened in our home. It starts in our home,” San Nicolas said. “We've been through trials and tribulations. We identified it as a team, as a family. We went through the treatments as a family, Kianni went through college, and I’m continuing to give back to youth and to society.

“It's been a long road, but this is not the end. It’s just the beginning.”

Media Contact

Brian Hiro, Communications Specialist

bhiro@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7306

The change was approved last week by Carl Kemnitz, CSUSM’s provost.  

As part of the department designation, public health will be moving from the School of Nursing, where it has resided since 2016, to the School of Health Sciences and Human Services. It will become the fifth department in that school, joining human development, kinesiology, social work and speech-language pathology.  

The final step for public health to be designated a department was the news this spring that the program has achieved accreditation by the Council on Education for Public Health (CEPH), an independent agency recognized by the U.S. Department of Education to accredit schools of public health and public health programs. The accreditation term is for five years, extending to July 1, 2026.  

Christina Holub has been serving as interim director of the program and, starting this summer, she will be the chair of the new Department of Public Health. Holub thanked the School of Nursing for initiating the public health program and also saluted the founding faculty: in addition to herself, Emmanuel Iyiegbuniwe, Deborah Morton, Asherlev Santos and Lisa Bandong. 

“With our recent accreditation and with a growing interest in public health careers, largely due to the pandemic, our team of faculty and staff are excited to train the next generation of culturally intelligent public health professionals,” Holub said. “There is so much more to come, and I can’t wait to see all the future endeavors and innovation in the public health department and, most importantly, how that translates to the success of our students and alumni. 

CSUSM established the public health program in 2016 to meet the needs of graduates in health professions and to fill vacant positions identified in North San Diego County. Within the professional Master of Public Health degree, the department offers two concentrations, in health promotion/health education and global health.  

The CEPH acted to accredit the MPH program at its meeting on March 7-8. The accreditation term is for five years, extending to July 1, 2026. The program’s initial accreditation date was recorded as Oct. 7, 2017. 

“Our goal is to best serve our students, so we are thrilled to have received accreditation by CEPH and with very positive feedback,” said Christina Holub, the interim director of CSUSM’s MPH program. “Especially in these extraordinary times, during a pandemic and with a continual need to address social justice and health inequities, being able to provide quality public health training is crucial in preparing competent and culturally intelligent public health professionals. We look forward to continuing to build an outstanding curriculum and experience for our students and to new endeavors that will further grow the MPH program at CSUSM.” 

CSUSM established the MPH program in 2016 to meet the needs of graduates in health professions and to fill vacant positions identified in North San Diego County. In addition to the professional MPH degree, the program offers two concentrations, in health promotion/health education and global health. 

Intended to be completed in an accelerated format of 16 months, the program features more than 100 current students and over 200 alumni.  

This marks the program’s first review for CEPH accreditation. The site visit took place virtually via Zoom because of COVID-19 travel restrictions; it will be followed by a campus visit within the next year. 

During the pandemic, several MPH students are doing contact tracing and related duties for the university, including Zachary Nortz. More examples of MPH students and alumni engaged in vital work amid COVID-19 can be found here.  

One month, Nortz was working for an auto parts distribution business in Rancho Bernardo. The next month, he joined the legions of Americans in unemployment as the burgeoning pandemic cut a devastating swath through the U.S. economy.

He found himself suddenly biding his time at home with his wife, Rachel, a speech-language pathology lecturer at Cal State San Marcos now teaching remotely, and his infant daughter, August, whose daycare facility was shut down because of COVID-19.

“It was very difficult to deal with an abrupt situation,” Nortz said. “But I felt like, with a long-term career, if it wasn’t going to be something I was already used to, I wanted it to be new and exciting and something that would be helpful to other people.”

Nortz had always been interested in public health, and what better chance than during a pandemic to scratch that itch? After a 13-year break since he graduated from San Diego State, he returned to higher education last fall as a student in CSUSM’s Master of Public Health program.

Not content merely to excel in his studies, Nortz has leaped at every opportunity to help the university get the health crisis under control. When the newly formed Campus COVID Case Coordination (C4) team reached out to the public health department last September seeking volunteers to assist with campus exposure investigations, Nortz was one of about 10 students who raised their hand.

He emerged from that initial pack of volunteers to be selected as an intern working up to 20 hours a week for the C4 team helmed by Erin Fullerton, director of Integrated Risk Management. And his stellar performance in that role led to him being hired, two weeks ago, as a temporary employee charged with helping plan the organization and logistics of a possible COVID-19 vaccination site for faculty and staff.

“I am so blessed to have him,” Fullerton said. “I would have lost my mind without the extra help. He’s been instrumental in allowing us to pull off what we’ve done so far.”

As part of his psychology major at SDSU in the mid-2000s, Nortz took a number of courses that touched on public health and epidemiology. After graduating in 2007, he worked in the San Diego aerospace industry in the areas of supply chain management and logistics.

At CSUSM, he has fused his academic interests with his professional experience. As a volunteer and then intern last fall, he did his part for the campus while COVID-19 cases skyrocketed nationwide. His duties included making contact tracing calls to students, staff and faculty who tested positive or were exposed to someone who tested positive; following up to offer support to individuals in isolation or quarantine and refer them to campus resources as needed; maintaining a log of positive cases to be shared with San Diego County health officials; and participating in weekly county briefing calls. Once he rose to intern status, he also coordinated the schedule and assignments of the other MPH volunteers. 

Fullerton said the contributions of Nortz and the other MPH students were integral to CSUSM being able to meet the county’s requirement that employers contact every case of COVID-19 positivity and exposure.  

“And we’ve been able to do it more quickly than the county because they’re just overwhelmed,” Fullerton said. “That, I think, has really helped to keep our case counts lower than many other colleges and organizations. It’s also helped to support our culture of care because we have time to talk to folks and follow up with valuable information.” 

With the C4 team now working on a potential vaccination site, Nortz is devoting much of his time to that effort as well. Each week, CSUSM applies to receive a share of the vaccines being distributed around the county, and the hope is that, sooner than later, the supply will be sufficient to fulfill its request. If that happens, the university would receive the vaccines on a Tuesday and need to administer all of them by the end of the week. 

To be sure, it’s a challenging undertaking for a group that never has run a vaccine clinic before. But with his background in logistics and supply chain management, Nortz is a crucial piece of the puzzle.  

“I’m just making sure we’re doing everything possible to think things through in the most efficient and equitable way possible,” Nortz said. “And when that first person gets their vaccine, I will feel a big sense of accomplishment.” 

Nortz is on track to graduate from the accelerated MPH program by the end of this year, after which he would like to find a job in epidemiology at the county, state or even federal level. He said he’s particularly intrigued by the potential to coordinate vaccine clinics and develop more equality-driven methods of contact tracing.  

He knows it sounds weird to say while the pandemic rages on, but on a strictly personal basis, COVID-19 has been a blessing in disguise for him. 

“I have really found my stride, and I’m enjoying every part of what I’m doing right now,” he said. “I feel like I will have the continuing passion to do this job to the best of my ability, and the stakes are much higher than they’ve ever been for any of my previous responsibilities. I’m lucky to have landed so well on my feet.” 

Media Contact

Brian Hiro, Communications Specialist

bhiro@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7306