Columns:: Campus Closeup

since 12/15/98

Columns::February 24, 2003

Charlayne Hunter-Gault to deliver Darl Snyder Lecture
Center for Reproductive Law, Policy director will give Edith House Lecture
Four governors and a gift
UGA degree programs expand this fall at Gwinnett University Center
Asia conference opens March 1
Sturgeon resurgence
Development office names director of corporate, foundation relations
Newsmakers
Keeping it all together
Regents approve four new Peabody board members
South Campus job expo

Campus News

An avid marathon runner who also likes to travel, Leslie Rodriguez plans her marathons around places she would like to go. To date, she has run marathons in Chicago, Washington, D.C., San Diego, Duluth, Minn., and Nashville. (Photo by Peter Frey)

Campus Closeup

LESLIE RODRIGUEZ
Research Coordinator II
Foods and Nutrition

JOB DESCRIPTION: “I am involved in grant writing and implementation, doing evaluations and maintaining the budget for projects to improve the quality of life and health of the Latino population in Georgia. We also design nutrition intervention programs and educational classes.
“As part of my job, I conduct focus groups to find out what a community needs and what they want to hear in terms of health, nutritional, and physical activity information.
“This year’s project, funded by the NIH, deals with dietary assessment in minority adolescents. Working with Latino adolescents, we’re trying to figure out what kind of foods bilingual, Hispanic middle school students are eating that might be different from other populations. We will be developing a tool (Picture Card Sorting) in order to assess their diets.
“The USDA food stamp grant is another study in which we’re working to develop a program for the Latino population in Gainesville.”

A TYPICAL DAY: “Sometimes I’m out in the community conducting research--gathering data, connecting with community members, resources, and people we’re going to need to work with to design our program. Some days I’m designing educational materials or translating existing things and culturally adapting them to be used with our program. Other days I might do a focus group or key-informant interview, or I might be sitting in my office looking over the budget to see if we’re meeting all of our numbers and quarterly time targets to see if we’re running on schedule.”

YEARS IN CURRENT POSITION: Four.

MOST REWARDING/CHALLENGING PART OF MY JOB: “Right now the Latino population in Georgia is a fairly new population, whereas in California and Texas it’s very established so they have a lot of data. They know their population pretty well.
“Here we don’t really have that understanding, so it’s challenging because we don’t have that data, but also it’s rewarding because I’m a part of gathering that information.”

OTHER UGA EXPERIENCE: “I’m currently working on my master’s. A registered dietician, I graduated from UGA in 1998 with a bachelor’s degree in dietetics.”

OTHER WORK EXPERIENCE: “I interned at Georgia State University for a year to become a dietician.”

IF I WASN’T DOING THIS JOB, I’D MOST LIKE TO: “I am really interested in health communications--advertisers have a lot of money to spend on selling their products. I’d like to design campaigns and sell health to the Latino population. I write a monthly nutrition column for Atlanta Sport and Fitness magazine, and I also write for the Spanish Web site Mi dieta (www.midieta.com). I enjoy taking research and giving it to average people in words they can understand.”

OFF-THE-JOB INTERESTS: “I run and train for marathons, which takes up a lot of my time. Because I like to travel, I like to make running a part of that. So I try to plan my marathons around places I’d like to go. I’ve run the marathon in Chicago, Washington, D.C., San Diego, Duluth, Minn., and Nashville.”

A BOOK THAT I’D RECOMMEND TO OTHERS: “I commute back and forth from Atlanta so now I listen to books on tape all the time. The one I would recommend now is Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer. It’s a really good story about people who get lost in a storm trying to climb Mt. Everest.”

THE PEOPLE I MOST ADMIRE: “My mom, Rosa, who passed away three years ago, and my dad, Rolando Rodriguez. They came to the United States from Cuba with absolutely nothing, and they made a life for themselves and for me and my three sisters.
“My parents provided us with a good life and a good education. I really admire them for making the sacrifices they did to get us to where we are.”

THE ISSUE THAT CONCERNS ME MOST ABOUT TODAY’S WORLD: “The health disparities in this nation with growing obesity rates and chronic diseases. People are getting heavier, and we have a growing rate of heart disease, high blood pressure and cancer. There’re a lot of issues that aren’t getting any better and something needs to change.
“I think of the way social norms toward smokers have changed and wonder if the same thing might happen to make overeating and obesity against the norm. We need to find ways to get busy parents to stray from feeding their children fast food too often.
“With the Latino population, it’s an issue of acculturation. As Latinos become more Americanized and learn the American way, they start to pick up the same habits, eating junk food, fast food, eating bigger portion sizes, and in the end they have the same problems we do.”

--Leslie Bakun

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