The Global Hearth

Jo Weaver, Bella Albiani, & Avi Locke: "Health and Stress Among People Experiencing Homelessness in Eugene"

“There’s nothing that compares to the generosity I’ve learned is possible to exist by virtue of this community and the way they care for each other.”  - Avi Locke, ‘25 UO Graduate & Lab Manager for the UO Stress Physiology Integrative Team Lab & the Global Health Biomarker Lab Bella Albiani, StudentResearcher, Multidisciplinary Science ‘26 Jo Weaver, Co-Director ofthe Center for Global Health, Associate Professor, Global Studies In this episode of The Global Hearth, we learn about a groundbreaking National Science Foundation-funded study exploring the intersection of homelessness, stress, andphysical well-being. Led by medical anthropologist Professor Jo Weaver and biological anthropologist Professor Josh Snodgrass, the project partners with community organizations in Eugene to research and develop a multi-faceted understanding of the lived realities experienced by our unhoused neighbors. Joined by staff researcher Avi Locke and student researcher Bella Albiani, Jo Weaver helpsus understand why addressing homelessness in Eugene must be approached through comprehensive solutions that are tailored to our local ecosystem. This project is the first of its kind to combine three distinct data streams: physiologicalbiomarkers (i.e. taking blood samples to measure hormones like cortisol and cholesterol), structured questionnaires, and personal narrative to create a holistic picture of life unsheltered that quantitative data alone cannot fullycapture. Quick Links: Homelessness Policy and Health Project [https://blogs.uoregon.edu/weaverlab/houselessness-research/] Amazon Wishlish for Eugene Neighbors [https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/1FC2FRALKG3KE?ref_=list_d_wl_lfu_nav_6] UOHousing and Homelessness Hub [https://blogs.uoregon.edu/uohhh/] BlackThistle Street Aid [https://www.blackthistlestreetaid.org/] AllostaticLoad [https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/allostatic-load#types-of-stress] Biomarkers [https://www.niehs.nih.gov/health/topics/science/biomarkers] Whatis Narcan? [https://youtu.be/sRkrrreIdwc?si=kYbboAum-5eEn1OO] JoWeaver’s Google Scholar Page [https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=idM4QqMAAAAJ&hl=en] Lastly, remember to follow Universityof Oregon Global Ducks [https://www.linkedin.com/company/global-ducks/posts/?feedView=all] on LinkedIn, and your questions,comments, insights (and favorite poetry!) are welcomed via email to gsi@uoregon.edu [gsi@uoregon.edu]. Thank you forjoining us at the Global Hearth.

Chris Chavez: "Cultivating a critical lens: Power and storytelling in the media."

“I’m interested in voice in the collective sense. Who gets to have a voice? Which communities get to be heard? Which other communities are rendered voiceless in this process?” - Chris Chavez, Director of the Center for Latina/o and Latin American Studies and Carolyn Silva Chambers Distinguished Professor of Advertising  Professor Chris Chávez joins us at the Global Hearth to explore how the media and advertising industries systematically turn down the volume on Latinx voices, limiting access to freedom of expression and stifling diversity in representation.  Using National Public Radio as a case study, Chris explores how music can serve as a vibrant form of resistance, while documenting the institutional privileging inherent in training protocols that coerce journalists into neutralizing their cultural identities and homegrown accents to achieve commercial viability.  Chris ultimately leads us into the question of why a free press truly matters, who the work is for, and what listeners can do to diversify and critically expand their algorithms to more accurately reflect the vibrancy that surrounds the increasingly globalized world.   Quick links:   What is “sociolinguistics?” [https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/social-sciences/sociolinguistics]  Let's explore "Fractal Recursivity" [https://medium.com/@ajmalanoski/fractal-recursivity-explained-2ee7adbbd50a]  Reporters Without Borders: World Press Freedom Index [https://rsf.org/en/index]  World Press Freedom Day [https://www.unesco.org/en/days/press-freedom]  Octavio Paz, Nobel Laureate [https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1990/paz/facts/]  Goodby, Silverstein, & Partners [https://goodbysilverstein.com/]  Don’t Shoot the Journalist! [https://alliance-uoregon.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01ALLIANCE_UO/uujmje/alma99901201718201852]  Laufer, Peter. Don’t Shoot the Journalists : Migrating to Stay Alive. London: Anthem Press, 2025. Print.   The Sound of Exclusion: NPR and the Latinx Public [https://alliance-uoregon.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01ALLIANCE_UO/uujmje/alma99900897515201852]  Chávez, Christopher. The Sound of Exclusion : NPR and the Latinx Public. 1st ed. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2021. Print.  Isle of Rum : Havana Club, Cultural Mediation, and the Fight for Cuban Authenticity [https://alliance-uoregon.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01ALLIANCE_UO/uujmje/alma99901102063601852]  Chávez, Christopher. Isle of Rum : Havana Club, Cultural Mediation, and the Fight for Cuban Authenticity. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2024. Print.  Chris Chavez’s Google Scholar Page [https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=QDgyFxYAAAAJ&hl=en]  Lastly, remember to follow University of Oregon Global Ducks [https://www.linkedin.com/company/global-ducks/posts/?feedView=all] on LinkedIn, and your questions, comments, insights (and favorite poetry!) are welcomed via email to gsi@uoregon.edu [gsi@uoregon.edu].  Thank you for joining us at the Global Hearth.

Jeff Measelle & Dare Baldwin: “Protecting Infant Developmental Health in Cambodia Through Thiamine Supplementation”

“The first thousand days of life is when we’ve got to get it right.” - Jeff Measelle, Co-Director of the Center for Global Health, Professor of Global Health and Psychology  “Jeff and I had the privilege to go to Cambodia to help train the staff on how to carry out the neurocognitive tasks that we designed for the study. And, these are such thoughtful, talented, hardworking, determined, dedicated, young researchers traveling to rural village homes every day of the week, week after week, month after month, often in monsoon rains, down muddy tracks, for two hours, carrying heavy backpacks with equipment.” - Dare Baldwin, Professor of Psychology and faculty member in the Clark Honors College  Join Dare Baldwin and Jeff Measelle at the Global Hearth to explore the fragile yet powerful connection between maternal nutrition and a child's lifelong potential, bringing light to a silent crisis in Cambodia where thiamine deficiency puts infants at risk of lethal beriberi disease and cognitive stunting.  Jeff and Dare share how their research is demonstrating how the attunement between a parent and their infant, which is so important to early learning, can be made vulnerable by the lack of a single micronutrient. Ultimately, the project seeks to break the cycle of poverty and hidden hunger through sustainable, society-wide interventions like food fortification, protecting the foundational first 1,000 days of life for every child, and the community that cares for them.   Quick Links:   What is neuroplasticity? [https://www.britannica.com/science/neuroplasticity]  What is Beriberi disease? [https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7986856/]  Thiamine supplementation [https://gsi.uoregon.edu/thiamine-supplementation]     Let's learn the Khmer language! [https://youtu.be/bg5m5QS6PSk?si=y8-0GdiH4NIhyHuS]  Dare Baldwin’s Google Scholar Page [https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=pS-idGwAAAAJ&hl=en]  Jeff Measelle’s Google Scholar Page [https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=pPjk_0YAAAAJ&hl=en]  With gratitude for support from:   Hellen Keller International [https://helenkellerintl.org/]  Weiss Asset Management Foundation [https://www.wamfoundation.org/]    Lastly, remember to follow University of Oregon Global Ducks [https://www.linkedin.com/company/global-ducks/posts/?feedView=all] on LinkedIn, and your questions, comments, insights (and favorite poetry!) are welcomed via email to gsi@uoregon.edu [gsi@uoregon.edu].  Thank you for joining us at the Global Hearth.

Gyoung-Ah Lee: “Food, Memory, and Ancient Identity”

“Although we have very limited data, if we just accept that people are people and they are in a way like us, [we understand] they want to love and be loved.” - Gyoung-ah Lee, Professor of Anthropology, Asian Studies, and Food Studies  Archaeologist Gyoung-Ah Lee invites us to look past the broken stones and pottery shards of the Neolithic period to see the profoundly human stories they carry. Reframing the ancient world not as a cold struggle for survival, but as a place where people expressed themselves artistically, leaving behind touching artifacts such as a Neolithic infant's footprint preserved in a clay plate.  The conversation re-stories common tropes to show how the move from foraging to farming was a sophisticated, balanced transition guided by Traditional Ecological Knowledge—a "bottom-up" practice centered on stewardship and resilience. By illuminating the communal hearths of ancient Korea, Professor Lee shows us that food has always been more than just nutrition; it is a medium for connection and community that has linked humans and our ancestors together for thousands of years.  Quick links:   Han Kang, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature 2024 [https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2024/han/facts/]  Jeju Island, Korea [https://insidejeju.com/jeju-island/]  Gyoung-ah Lee’s Google Scholar Page [https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=3iAYl34AAAAJ&hl=en]  Lastly, remember to follow University of Oregon Global Ducks [https://www.linkedin.com/company/global-ducks/posts/?feedView=all] on LinkedIn, and your questions, comments, insights (and favorite poetry!) are welcomed via email to gsi@uoregon.edu [gsi@uoregon.edu].  Thank you for joining us at the Global Hearth.

Xiaobo Su: “From Tea Tables to Tourism Economies: Reshaping Home in a Globalized World”

“I think the beauty of geography is you can study pretty much everything, from animal to trees to mountains to human beings...tea for me is the entry point to understand how people socialize with unfamiliar people.” - Xiaobo Su,  Director of the APRU Sustainable Cities and Landscapes Program and Professor of Asian Studies, Climate Studies, Geography  Xiaobo Su, a human geographer at the University of Oregon, joins the Global Hearth to explain how everyday human behaviors—from tea drinking in Chinese tourist towns to cross-border smuggling along the China–Myanmar border—reveal the spatial dynamics of power, belonging, and political economy. Drawing on the work of philosophers like Antonio Gramsci, he reframes concepts like home, governance, and cultural heritage as negotiated processes shaped by cooperation, compromise, commodification, and the lived realities of communities navigating inequality and state control.  Quick links:   Antonio Gramsci [https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/gramsci/]  Geographic Information System (GIS) [https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/what-a-geographic-information-system-gis]   Urban State Venturism [https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/20438206231220724]   Xiaobo Su’s Google Scholar Page [https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=8YZLknsAAAAJ&hl=en]   Research locations referenced in this episode:   Lijiang (Lijiang Ancient Town), China [https://maps.app.goo.gl/cptFWVfx4pFoYPZG8]  Guangzhou, China [https://maps.app.goo.gl/621tGPuXxL3hgAkaA]  Dongguan, China [https://maps.app.goo.gl/1pdmBh3nPiKeoeMK8]  Ruili, China [https://maps.app.goo.gl/mrCGnuqV2qB6HYVo7]  Muse, Myanmar [https://maps.app.goo.gl/WkT9wStdoRov19AE7]  Music attribution: Track: Bella Ciao, SE  Music by https://www.fiftysounds.com [https://www.fiftysounds.com/]  Lastly, remember to follow University of Oregon Global Ducks [https://www.linkedin.com/company/global-ducks/posts/?feedView=all] on LinkedIn, and your questions, comments, insights (and favorite poetry!) are welcomed via email to gsi@uoregon.edu [gsi@uoregon.edu].  Thank you for joining us at the Global Hearth.