California State University, Monterey Bay
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Compassion, connection, and capacity: Outcomes of a yearlong contemplative medicine fellowship
No full textObjective: To evaluate how a year-long Contemplative Medicine Fellowship impacts physician burnout, moral injury, work-life integration, meaning, capacity for compassion, and professional resilience.
Design: A pre–post survey observational study using a combination of validated survey tools and questionnaire items authored by the research team.
Setting: The New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care (NYZC), an educational nonprofit in the US, offers a year-long, remote learning fellowship in contemplative medicine that integrates mindfulness, compassion training, reflective inquiry, community engagement, and other contemplative approaches to the practice of medicine.
Intervention: Participation in the Contemplative Medicine Fellowship, which includes experiential contemplative practice, didactic instruction, mentorship, peer-group reflection, and cultivation of a community of support over 12 months.
Main outcome measures: Primary outcomes included changes in burnout, well-being, and compassion (Maslach Burnout Inventory, Physician Well-Being Index, DPES-Compassion Scale). Participant’s perceived value of the intervention is also assessed.
Results: Participants showed statistically significant reductions in emotional exhaustion (–10.0 points, P \u3c .001) and depersonalization (–3 points, P = .015); increases in measures related to well-being; and statistically significant increases in compassion (+0.4 points, P = .022). Participants also reported a high level of satisfaction with the intervention and an increased sense of community.
Conclusions: Contemplative training may mitigate burnout and moral distress while fostering compassion, meaning, connection, and leadership in clinical practice. Future endeavors may consider more widespread education and implementation of these concepts into medical education and practice as part of a cultural shift of medicine towards sustainable clinician well-being
Addressing Mental Needs in the Justice System
No full textClients in the Mental Health Diversion Program often struggle to understand legal requirements due to the impact of mental health symptoms, which can interfere with their ability to complete the program. This capstone project was implemented at the Monterey County Public Defender’s Office within the Mental Health Diversion team, which serves individuals in the legal system with mental health challenges. The project aimed to strengthen staff communication with clients by providing a training presentation on mental-health-informed communication strategies. A post-presentation survey measured staff experience, confidence, awareness, and intention to apply the techniques. Results showed that most staff already had extensive experience and high confidence communicating with clients, so the presentation increased awareness only slightly, but many participants reported they were very likely to apply the techniques discussed. Recommendations include offering future training to less-experienced staff, expanding education to other departments, and families to further improve client understanding and engagement
The Process of Integrating Analog Music Recording Techniques In the Modern Age
No full textJacob Alfaro and I recorded an album called Greenway Derby. Taking past influences into account, this paper looks into how the modern musician can be inspired by these artists\u27 techniques. Specifically focusing on analog recording gear and how, within the digital age, modern musicians can integrate techniques and sounds from the past into their own workflow when learning to write and record an album while still achieving the analog tones using both the professional studio and home studio options
Bridging the Digital Divide: Educating Older Adults to Recognize and Prevent Scams
No full textThe older adult community, especially those 60 years and older, is a frequent target of scams and financial exploitation. When an individual is scammed, and with the likelihood of older adults choosing not to report, many do not recover their money (CFPB 2022). Social isolation and cognitive decline are significant factors that increase an older adult’s susceptibility to scams; however, digital literacy and their lack of understanding of technology are also obstacles to detecting a scammer’s deception. In response to these concerns, I created an hour-long presentation to educate and bring awareness to older adults about scams and how to avoid them. This workshop was hosted by the Alliance on Aging for older adults in Salinas, CA
Supporting Healthy Eating Habits in Preschoolers
No full textUnhealthy eating habits in early childhood are a growing health concern that has long-term effects on children’s physical and emotional health. Early childhood is an ideal time to support healthy eating habits because nutritious food choices support 1 children’s growth, brain development, and overall well-being. Making healthy food choices also helps prevent diseases such as diabetes and heart disease (Al-Mahshi et al., 2025). However, many young children face limited nutrition education, a lack of parental influence, and inadequate food environments. To address this issue, I created a one-day workshop for children at an early childhood daycare, Ale’s Learn and Play in Seaside, CA, where I provided hands-on activities, sensory experiences, and discussions to learn the differences between healthy, nutritional foods and processed foods and to encourage healthier choices at mealtimes
Building Young Leaders With Purpose: Teaching Leadership and Anti-Bullying Through Student Leadership Club
No full textThis capstone project was developed to implement a Student Leadership Club for elementary students’ in response to high levels of bullying influenced by unmet social emotional needs, family stress and increased access to technology. The project took place at Jesse G. Sanchez Elementary School within the Alisal Union School District (AUSD). A predominantly Latino, multilingual and economically vulnerable TK- 6th school in Salinas, CA. The eight week curriculum was designed to strengthen leadership skills through self and peer nominations to help promote bullying prevention among fifth and sixth graders. Weekly meetings focused on communication, empathy and upstander behaviors. Pre and post surveys were used to assess changes in knowledge and awareness, results showed a 17.5 % increase in students\u27 understanding of bullying and 29.5% increase in likelihood to report bullying to an adult. These findings indicate that the project successfully enhanced students\u27 leadership skills and their confidence in responding to bullying. Next steps recommended for the school include requiring all teachers to participate in monthly social emotional learning (SEL) presentations to ensure consistent reinforcement of SEL and to strengthen early intervention efforts aimed to further reduce bullying at school
Molecular Mechanisms Underlying Heat and Cold Tolerance in Galapagos Pocillopora spp. Communities
No full textGalapagos corals in the Eastern Tropical Pacific inhabit marginal, suboptimal environments and experience frequent, intense thermal stress-increasingly common conditions for reefs under recurrent climate anomalies. Marginal populations may host resilient individuals, providing insight into climate-driven acclimatization and adaptation. In the Galapagos, coral community resilience has been highest in the far northern island sites of Darwin and Wolf, and experimental thermal assays show that Pocillopora colonies from these sites are more heat- and cold-tolerant than colonies from the southwestern island of Isabela.
To identify drivers of this variation, we sequenced the mitochondrial open reading frame (mtORF) to determine host haplotype and used actin-targeted quantitative PCR to characterize symbiont community composition across seven sites spanning the thermal range experienced by corals across the archipelago. We also conducted a preliminary RNA-seq analysis of heat and cold stress responses in colonies from Isabela, which will be expanded in future work to incorporate TagSeq data from all seven sites.
Pocillopora from resilient far northern sites were mtORF Haplotype 1 and hosted the highest relative abundances of stress-tolerant Durusdinium symbionts, while thermally sensitive colonies from Isabela were clonal Haplotype 3 individuals hosting exclusively stress-sensitive Cladocopium symbionts. Across all seven sites, host haplotype was the strongest predictor of thermal sensitivity. Preliminary gene expression analyses from Isabela revealed that corals induced many of the same core biochemical pathways under acute heat and cold stress. However, some regulatory patterns diverged depending on the stressor. Heat stress broadly activated molecular chaperones, antioxidants, and immunity and cell-death regulators, while suppressing metabolic functions. Cold stress elicited widespread repression of these same pathways, with targeted induction of genes stabilizing membranes, proteins, and cytoskeletal structures.
Together, these results demonstrate that geographic variation in host lineage and symbiont identity, combined with conserved and stressor-specific molecular responses, underlies the observed differences in thermal tolerance across the archipelago. This work improves understanding of how corals persist in highly variable environments and provides a framework for predicting resilience in vulnerable reef systems worldwide
Engaging Minds, Changing lives: Developing Youth Centered Substance Use Education for VHA
Full text linkSubstance use among the youth is a public health concern worldwide. Valley Health Associates (VHA) is a non-profit agency that offers solutions to the deadly epidemic by offering programs like the Youth Outpatient Program. Individuals from different backgrounds are served by VHA. The capstone project aims to develop an engaging, age appropriate and interactive presentation to educate youth on substance use and prevention, specially tailored for (VHA) Youth Outpatient Program. The initiative was sought because of VHA’S outreach materials, which previously consisted of a broad presentation and limited online resources. A new presentation was created using Canva and made available in editable format for continued use and adaptation. The project implementation plan was from November 2024 to March 2025, beginning with review of the current material and continuing through pre and post assessments to a final presentation. The pre and post test surveys were used to assess knowledge retention, engagement and the effectiveness of the new materials. The findings showed a clear improvement in youth understanding of substance use, awareness of resources, and reported likelihood to avoid substance after the presentation. Finally, the project provides VHA with a sustainable educational tool for outreach and youth group sessions, contributing to increased awareness and prevention of substance abuse. The recommendations include ongoing youth education, the involvement of community guest speakers, and continue update to online content and outreach strategies to ensure long term impact