Each year, the University of Houston Division of Research hosts Undergraduate Research Day to showcase the work of student/faculty teams from across the university. This year, two students from the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences received Poster Presentation Awards for their work, showing again that research is not confined to science labs.

Alexandra Canga was one of those students. Alexandra is a Sociology major who looked at Love, Sex, and RISK: Sexual Behaviors Among Mexican-American Heroin Sniffers. And, shes a research assistant in the Office for Drug and Social Policy Research in the Graduate College of Social Work.

Alexandra worked with Alice Cepeda, Assistant Professor of Sociology and Senior Researcher at the Office for Drug and Social Policy Research in the Graduate College of Social Work.

Prof. Cepeda has written about the relationship between drugs and violence, sex workers on the U.S./Mexico boarder, gang affiliated adolescent females, and risk associated with transitioning to injecting heroin use. She also is co-investigator of a National Institute on Drug Abuse study examining how disaster related experiences associated with Hurricane Katrina impact changes in substance use and abuse patterns.

http://www.class.uh.edu/enews/2009/01/#discovery (less info)