Research Reaching
Houston

The Houston Metropolis Is a Hotbed of Scientific Discovery for UH Researchers.

Muddy, hungry, stressed or forgotten – these are the perfect conditions for scholarly work according to many University of Houston researchers. These intrepid investigators do their best work knee-deep in recently flooded Houston bayous, inner city “food deserts,” tense courtrooms and University-adjacent community health centers.

Where the masses gather, it becomes inevitable that the infrastructure, ecology and economy will strain to meet their needs. And as the nation’s fourth largest city, Houston provides a plethora of challenges and, simultaneously, experiential learning opportunities for UH researchers to investigate and move one step closer to delivering solutions. 

“We have developed an integrated research management model that has steered the University’s direction since 2017. At its core is serving Houston and positively impacting our fellow Houstonians’ lives,” said Amr Elnashai, UH vice president for research and technology transfer. “Our success is exemplified by the host of impressive stories presented here.”

The work of the University’s Houston-focused research endeavors is now on display in the Research Reaching Houston portal: https://research.uh.edu/reaching-houston, a repository and community resource highlighting the work of UH researchers for the city it calls home. 

“We have developed an integrated research management model that has steered the University’s direction since 2017. At its core is serving Houston and positively impacting our fellow Houstonians’ lives.”

- Amr Elnashai

Researchers as Change Agents

Nearly all of UH’s approximately 2,850 faculty members engage in research of some kind. While research for the pursuit of knowledge and to advance science is admirable, research often plays a significant role in drafting policies needed to enact societal changes. Through UH research, policies have or will be enacted that influence the city’s Chinese tariff laws and its overhaul of the forensic crimes lab.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey in August 2017, the Hobby School of Public Affairs at UH initiated a multi-year panel survey to understand the long-term experiences of people impacted by the storm, and the storm’s effect on the area’s real estate market.

“I think these results can help local leaders make better policy decisions that affect Houston,” said Sunny Wong, professor in the Hobby School and research investigator. 

One Research Reaching Houston story explains how researchers helped reform Houston’s broken bail process. Analysis of the system revealed how socioeconomic status influenced outcomes for those arrested on misdemeanor offenses, leading to an inordinate number of lower-income individuals unable to pay the bail waiting in jail for their trial. Today, Harris County’s bail system is being revamped under the watchful eye of a UH professor, whose research has advanced policy changes in this area. 

“I think these results can help local leaders make better policy decisions that affect Houston.”

- Sunny Wong

The COVID-19 Effect

The pandemic changed the way research was conducted just as it changed everything else. Researchers had to employ new tools to reach and engage with the community they served.

Research by Doug Thornton, director of the Prescription Drug Misuse Education and Research Center at UH, has led him to conclude that the situation regarding prescription drug misuse has only intensified during the COVID pandemic. As part of a program called Educate Before You Medicate, Thornton and his students in the College of Pharmacy, reached out via phone to more than 700 pharmacies in Harris County to provide pharmacists education on counseling for controlled substances, options for safe drug disposal and other best practices to reduce abuse. 

Cheryl Brohard, associate professor in the College of Nursing, conducted Life Review, a memory-driven retrieval technique, with elderly dementia patients via Zoom. Brohard’s research had many outcomes, but the most fulfilling was that the geriatric participants reported feeling better about themselves and their life decisions.

Other studies in the College of Nursing showed that nurses are being driven out of the profession due to the very stressful nature of COVID-19.  The data collected will help identify the areas in which nurses need to be supported both individually and organizationally.

“As this pandemic is far from over, it is imperative that trauma and mental health informed interventions be implemented to support our nursing workforce and help our ‘heroes’ be successful survivors of this pandemic,” said Teresa McIntyre, College of Nursing research professor. Through email and Microsoft Teams, these researchers reached out to the greater Houston community, when being in the same room was impossible.

Community at the Heart of Research

And community is key. The Center for Art and Social Engagement at UH engages in partnerships with Project Row Houses and the Suzanne Deal Booth Fellows to build up and act as change agents for Houston’s communities of color. CASE engages Third Ward residents through oral histories, photovoice activities and other creative practices to tell the stories of Black lives within the city. 

“What we have observed is that learning continues beyond each project,” shared Sixto Wagan, the inaugural director of CASE. 

Finally, what is most evident in the story of UH’s research enterprise is that research is more than educational; it is bipartisan, multi-ethnic and diverse. It’s a lesson all of society can learn from academia. For instance, HPD Officer Paul Ogden said of Professor Guadalupe Quintanilla’s methodology in teaching the Houston police force Spanish and researching the results, “All it took was putting real officers with real people. No one had any other agenda than to learn how to better communicate.”

From determining how best to support Houston’s First Responders to measuring toxin levels in Galveston oyster beds, what UH researchers hold in common is the impressive, translational nature of science. It is what catapults the University to the forefront of the minds of its stakeholders. 

Keep scrolling to discover the local reach of UH Research.

Care, Not Incarceration

According to research by Robin Gearing, Graduate College of Social Work professor and director of the Center for Mental Health Research and Innovation in Treatment Engagement and Service, some 30 to 70 percent of incarcerated individuals may be suffering from untreated mental health issues. As part of a grant from the U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance awarded to Fort Bend County, University of Houston researchers are assisting Fort Bend County to reduce the number of individuals with mental illness booked into jail. They are also attempting to shorten the average length of stay, reduce recidivism rates and improve overall connection to treatment programs.

Supplying a Supply Chain Workforce

The toilet paper and cleaning supply panic experienced during the onset of COVID-19 demonstrated the important role supply chain management plays in our day-to-day life. “We should’ve been talking about agility, resiliency and sustainability versus lean production before this past year occurred,” said Margaret Kidd, instructional assistant professor of supply chain and logistics technology. At the Port Houston alone, 3.2 million workers play an essential role in keeping shelves stocked; however, many are ready for retirement, and there is a growing shortage of trained professionals to replace them. With help from Port Houston Community Grants, Kidd developed educational platform through a certificate program in the College of Technology to address the employee shortage. The program is built with sustainability in mind, so that as Port Houston operations expand, so too does the educational outreach to targeted populations – such as the Maritime Transportation Logistics program at Stephen F. Austin High School. 

Understanding Vaccine Hesitancy  

Vaccine hesitancy disproportionately involves Black and Latinx populations in Houston. University of Houston health equity scientist Ezemenari Obasi is dedicated to finding out why and creating culturally responsive solutions – including a vaccine education program targeting Houston’s underserved residents. By listening to individuals and asking simple questions, he’s receiving quite complex answers. “Historically, there’s been an oversimplification of why people might not want to be vaccinated, and many point to historical medical mistreatment like the Tuskegee experiment.” That experiment was an abusive medical study in which Black men with syphilis went untreated to document the progression of the disease. “We want to uncover whether it’s more nuanced than that and understand the role that recent mixed messaging from politicians has contributed to hesitancy,” Obasi said.  

Amplifying the Voices of a Community

A single rose rises out of a block of concrete – dozens of such sculptures face a wall scrawled with a poem concerning resiliency. Partnering with Third Ward Project Row Houses, the University of Houston’s Center for Art and Social Engagement aims to highlight artists as change agents. The CASE fellows go into Third Ward, the neighborhood adjacent to UH, and conduct oral histories, photovoice activities and engage in other creative practices. “What we have observed is that learning continues beyond each project, and we are conscious that we are an example of partnership with communities of color to the city and the nation,” said Sixto Wagan, the Center’s inaugural director, of working with local artists such as Libby Bland and Sarah Rafael Garcia. 

Rain, Rain Won’t Go Away

The 63 rain gauges around Harris County that have measured rainfall for the past 30 years do not paint an encouraging picture for the future. Surprisingly, research shows it is not the torrential, named storms like Hurricane Harvey and Tropical Storm Allison that cause the overall rise in rainfall in Houston. Instead, it’s the heavy, everyday rain that results in frequent flooding. Research by Bernhard Rappenglueck, professor of atmospheric chemistry, and doctoral student Madeline Statkewicz is helping engineers and other stakeholders shore up the city’s infrastructure and improve city planning. The first thing Houstonians can do to mitigate flooding in the city? “Don’t chop down old trees,” Rappenglueck said. “The lack of vegetation, especially the wetlands,
is dangerous for our wellbeing.”

Houston’s Civil Rights History

The Black Power Movement of the 1960s calls to mind the big moments in Oakland, New York or Chicago. Houston, not so much. To dispel that misunderstanding, Cedric Tolliver, professor of English at the University of Houston, is uncovering the fervent civil rights activity that took place in Houston. Tolliver and students set out to collect as many stories of Houston-based Black Power-era protests, organizations and histories as possible. Among their findings? Archives show that following the violent demonstrations at Texas Southern University, UH students brought activist Stokely Carmichael to campus to speak in 1967. An organizer in the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, Carmichael is often credited with popularizing the phrase, “Black Power.” History was made at UH, and the pieces are starting to come together thanks to Tolliver’s persistence and scholarship.

Crime Lab Clean-Up

“Bad science wreaks havoc,” said Sandra Guerra Thompson, UH Law Center professor and director of University of Houston’s Criminal Justice Institute. And the Houston forensic science lab in Houston was rife with scandal, evidence tampering and just plain bad science. While some criminals were falsely accused, others who were guilty went free to commit more crimes. Her research has spurred the discussion for crime labs becoming independent entities, and she has even testified before a Congressional committee on her findings. Drawing on her expertise, the Houston Forensic Science Center is now a world leader in quality control, putting science first, regardless of whether the results help the prosecution or the defense.

The Night the Lights Went Out in Texas

What happened exactly during Winter Storm Uri that caused millions of Houstonians to go days without power or water during the coldest weather the state has experienced since 1989? Natural gas wells, pipes, wind turbines and coal piles that were not winterized, froze. While the outage caught many by surprise, Edward Hirs, University of Houston energy economics professor and inaugural UH Energy Fellow, forecasted the inevitable power grid failure in a 2013 article. This year, Hirs and his colleagues established the UH Energy Forecast Project to look at future energy supply and demand to help energy company leaders and government leaders plan for the energy transition in the U.S. and worldwide.