SAN DIEGO – Research scientists from Naval Health Research Center’s (NHRC) Operational Readiness directorate joined forces with San Diego Unified School District’s Health Career and College Symposium on Thursday Dec 7th.

More than 300 students selected from the school district’s Pathways Program, representing 23 schools participated in the event at the University of San Diego Park and Market venue in downtown San Diego. NHRC scientists gave hands-on demonstrations of research techniques and allowed students to interact with laboratory instrumentation for the tabling event part of the day long program.

“It was encouraging for me to see such genuine engagement by the students,” said Capt. Eric R. Welsh, commanding officer, NHRC. “We will definitely continue to work together with San Diego Unified School District on future STEM outreach. The event program and venue were top notch.”

Supporting STEM programs is a fundamental part of NHRC’s community outreach effort. Throughout the year the command hosts lab tours for grade school students, graduate students, teachers, and university professors providing guidance, inspiration, and pathways to successful careers as research scientists.

NHRC’s mission is to optimize military operational readiness through cutting-edge research on warfighter, veteran, and family health, and has been designated as the Department of Defense Deployment health Research Center since 1999. Our distinguished scientists and researchers consist of active-duty service members, federal civil service employees and contractors, whose expertise includes physiology, microbiology, psychology, operations research and data science, epidemiology and public health, and biomedical engineering.