Welcome to our September 2026 Newsletter!

Tribal Lands and Environment Forum (TLEF)

2026 People's Choice Award

The METALS Research Translation and Community Engagement team was recognized for its innovative use of Indigenous art at the annual Tribal Lands and Environment Forum in Oklahoma City in August 2026. The team was awarded the People’s Choice award for Multi-Media Meetup based on its display of Science Communication cards (5½ x 8-inch) depicting explanations of research results through the lens of Indigenous art and science. The team consisted of CEC co-lead Mallery Quetawki (Zuni Pueblo), team members, Asis Lopez, Derek Capitan (Laguna Pueblo), and METALS trainee, Abigail Granath, a PhD student in biology.

Congressional representatives and collaborators attend METALS meeting

At our May METALS Center meeting in Albuquerque, we hosted 6 staff representatives from the New Mexico Congressional Delegation interested in community-based environmental health issues. At this meeting, METALS leads and trainees provided updates on our work with rural communities in the Southwest.

Also in attendance were three invited international colleagues working on mining issues through the Universidade Federal do Ceara. Dr. Ligia Kerr presented on environmental health work in Brazil, where a large-open pit uranium mine is being prorosed in close proximity to hundreds of Indigenous villages. The following day, METALS coordinated a meeting with community partners at the Pueblo of Laguna which was coupled with a tour of the Jackpile-Paguate mine.



Dr. Julie In and her trainees from the BP Gut project had a stellar showing at the annual American Physiology Summit (APS) in Minnesota in April 2026.

The group presented cutting-edge research on intestinal organoids and trainees brought home the following awards.

• Cristina N Coffman won the Distinguished Research Award from the Gastrointestinal and Liver (GIL) Society.

• Myranda Thompson won the John Forte Distinguished Abstract Award and won second place in the GIL poster session. She received the APS Martin Frank Travel Award as well.

• Three trainees, Haydee Liu, Myranda Thompson, and Cristina Coffman, received a UNM BSGP (Biomedical Sciences Graduate Program) Travel Award for the conference.

METALS BP Gut trainees presented their research at the FASEB (Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology) conference focused on the Gastrointestinal Tract in Salt Lake City in Aug 2026. 

• Haydee Liu was selected to give a talk on uranium's effects on gut polyamine metabolism.

Dr. Julie In, presented “Uranium-Laden Particulate Dust Alters Intestinal Epithelial Proliferation and Differentiation” and Dr. Alicia Bolt presented "Immune-mediated responses to inhaled tungsten particles and cardiac injury" at the STERH/CBTOX Conference in June 2026 in Brazil.

METALS trainee, Abigail Granath, presented her work titled "Trait-Based Insights into Fungal Heavy Metal Tolerance and Removal" at the Meeting of the Mycological Society of America in Portland, OR in July of 2026.

COMMUNITY OUTREACH

NMED Event

The New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) recently hosted a ribbon-cutting event in June 2026 to announce breaking ground on the first cleanups under their new Uranium Mine cleanup Initiative. At this outreach event in Grants, NM, the METALS team was able to network with state and local agencies, contractors, and community groups involved in remediation efforts.

For more information on the NMED Abandoned Uranium Mine Cleanup Initiative and several of the sites where work is underway, visit https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/7f87b4a2e51742ba95aa2f28796303e3

Southwest Outreach Project Event

METALS hosted an informational table at a local community event in Albuquerue, with non-profit partner Southwest Outreach project (SWOP) and project feed the hood on July 10th. METALS Trainee, Abigail Granath, gave a presentation at the event on her work on fungi-sunflower bioremediation work and answered questions from community members.

TRAINEE HIGHLIGHTS

Past METALS trainee and current investigator, Dr. Eliane El Hayek is gaining significant national recognition for her work in environmental health sciences and has been promoted to Research Associate Professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences.

Dr. El Hayek and MPI, Dr Shahani Noor, from the Department of Neurosciences at the School of Medicine at UNM, recently received a R21 grant Exploring Nanoplastics Neurological Effects by Tackling Lipid Mechanisms and Glial Inflammation, from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.

Dr. Hayek and MPI, Dr. Shahani, have also recently received the R03 Small Research Grant Program for the Next Generation of Researchers in AD/ADRD Research from the National Institute on Aging.

RECENT PUBLICATIONS

Gong X, Huang Y, Wiggins CL, Meisner AL, Lin Y, Luo L. Industrial air pollution and lung and bronchus cancer survival in New Mexico, USA. Cancer Causes & Control. 2026 Jun;37(6):98. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10552-026-02180-x

Woldeyohannes T, Lin Y, Zhang X, Doyle J, Eggers M, Liu Z, Hridoy AE, Bimaghra EM, Bizure T, Mirka B, James L. Waste fire surveillance: A case study using remote sensing data and IoT ground sensing for monitoring fires at waste management sites. Waste Management. 2026 Jun 5;219:115577. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wasman.2026.115577

MazloumiBakhshayesh M, Hunter RP, Baird B, Liu R, Jimenez-Campos AG, Goitom S, Barr EB, Herbert GW, Lucas SN, McVeigh CM, Moreno J. The effects of tungsten inhalation and continuous administration of angiotensin II on cardiac injury and pulmonary outcomes. Toxicology and Applied Pharmacology. 2026 Feb 6:117753. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.taap.2026.117753 

Feric Z, Beene D, Signes-Pastor AJ, Watkins DJ, Gao G, Karagas MR, MacKenzie DA, Kaeli DR, Manjourides J. Effects of maternal arsenic exposure on birth outcomes using harmonized data across three birth cohorts. Toxicology and Environmental Health Sciences. 2026 Jan 29:1-3. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13530-025-00292-6

Lin Y, Beene D, Woldeyohannes T, Liu Z, Tatman W, Lister A, Gong X, Gay-Antaki M, Ingram J, Hoover J. Practicing community-based research in GIScience and geography–a case study with an Indigenous community, best practices, challenges, and lessons learned. Cartography and geographic information science. 2026 Jan 2;53(1):113-28. https://doi.org/10.1080/15230406.2025.2540843