Juan C. Jauregui

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Juan C. Jauregui, MSW, MPH is a PhD candidate in the Department of Social Welfare at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. His research focuses on population mental health and health inequities among Latinx populations in the U.S. and LGBTQ+ populations in Latin America, with particular attention to HIV, stigma, and access to care. Grounded in social work and public health, his work examines how structural, institutional, and psychosocial processes shape health and mental health outcomes across global and U.S. settings using community-engaged, qualitative, and mixed-methods approaches.

His dissertation, “Why are you letting him die?”: Infrastructural Abandonment and the Unevenness of HIV Care in Peru, draws on in-depth qualitative fieldwork with healthcare providers across Lima and the Peruvian Amazon to examine how structural inequalities are translated into the organization of HIV care. This research was supported by the National Institute of Mental Health through the Fogarty UCGHI GloCal Health Fellowship and the Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship. His work aims to inform health systems strengthening and policy reforms that address structural inequities and advance more equitable resource distribution, challenging systems that produce uneven access to care and differential valuations of certain lives over others.

Throughout his doctoral training, Juan has advanced a global mental health research agenda that includes co-leading the launch of national surveys on LGBTQ+ youth mental health in Peru and the Philippines in collaboration with The Trevor Project. His work has been published in Cambridge Prisms: Global Mental Health, Archives of Sexual Behavior, LGBT Health, and American Journal of Community Psychology. He is a recipient of the Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship and the NIMHD T37 LEAD Global Training Fellowship.

Prior to entering the doctoral program at UCLA, Juan earned his MSW and MPH from the University of Michigan, where he worked with the Resilience + Resistance Collective on LGBTQ+ mental health and sexual health projects in the United States, Kenya, Zambia, and the Dominican Republic. His professional background also includes research roles with the UCLA Adolescent Trials Network and as a trained crisis counselor with a national suicide prevention hotline.

Juan is a Mexican-American, first-generation college student. He earned his BS in Psychobiology from UCLA in 2017.

Selected Publications: 

Jauregui, J. C., Reyes-Diaz, M., León-Morris, F., Nath, R., Taylor, A. B., & Konda, K. A. (2026). Understanding suicide risk among LGBTQ+ youth in Peru: Findings from a nationwide mental health survey. Cambridge Prisms: Global Mental Health. 13, e50. doi: 10.1017/gmh.2026.10169

Jauregui, J. C., Lewis, K. A., Moore, D. M., Ogunbajo, A., Odero, W., Wambaya, J., Onyango, D. P., Jadwin-Cakmak, L., & Harper, G. W. (2025). “It kills the freedom or the spirit of people being who they are”: Impact of sexuality-based stigma and discrimination on the lives of gay and bisexual men in Kenya. Global Public Health, 20(1). doi: 10.1080/17441692.2025.2489713

Jauregui, J. C., Hong, G., Garner, A., Howell, S., & Holloway, I. W. (2025). Sexual behavior, app use, and venue comfort during COVID-19: A global study of gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men. The Journal of Sex Research, 1-7. doi: 10.1080/00224499.2025.2585071

Jauregui, J. C., & Harper, G. W. (2025) LGBTQ+ cultural sensitivity training for mental health professionals in the United States. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 54, 1309-1315. doi: 10.1007/s10508-025-03132-3

León-Morris, F. D., Reyes-Diaz, E. M., Jauregui, J. C., Konda, K. A., Taylor, A. B., Jarrett, B. A., Lee, W. Y., Muñoz, G., & Nath, R. (2024). 2024 Perú national report on the mental health of LGBTQ+ young people. The Trevor Project. Available at: https://thetrevorproject.org/survey-international/pe/2024/en/

Kirsten Schwarz

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Kirsten Schwarz is an urban ecologist working at the interface of environment, equity, and health. Her research focuses on environmental hazards and amenities in cities and how their distribution impacts minoritized communities. Her work on lead contaminated soils documents how biogeophysical and social variables relate to the spatial patterning of soil lead. Her research on urban tree canopy has revealed large scale patterns related to income and tree canopy as well as historical legacies that impact this relationship. Most recently, Dr. Schwarz led an interdisciplinary team working on a community-engaged green infrastructure design that integrated participatory design and place-based solutions to realizing desired ecosystem services.

Her expertise in science communication and engaging communities in the co-production of science was recognized by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) naming her a Fellow in the Leshner Leadership Institute in the Center for Public Engagement with Science and Technology. Dr. Schwarz’s research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, AAAS, and the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources.

Dr. Schwarz has a BA in Human Ecology from College of the Atlantic and a Ph.D. in Ecology from Rutgers University. Prior to joining UCLA, she was an Associate Professor of Environmental Science at Northern Kentucky University where she directed their Ecological Stewardship Institute.

Selected Publications:

Schwarz, K., A. Berland, and D.L. Herrmann. 2018. Green, but not just: Rethinking environmental justice outcomes in shrinking cities. Sustainable Cities and Society 41:816-821.

Ossola, A., L.A. Schifman, D.L. Herrmann, A.S. Garmestani, K. Schwarz, and M.E. Hopton. 2018. The provision of urban ecosystem services throughout the private-social-public domain: a conceptual framework. Cities and the Environment 11(1): Article 5.

Herrmann, D.L., W-C Chuang, K. Schwarz, T.M. Bowles, A.S. Garmestani, W.D. Shuster, T. Eason, M.E. Hopton, C.R. Allen. 2018. Agroecology for the shrinking city. Sustainability 10(3):675.

Cutts, B.B., J.K. London, S. Meiners, K. Schwarz, and M.L. Cadenasso. 2017. Moving dirt: Soil, lead and the unstable politics of urban gardening. Local Environment 22(8):998-1018.

London, J.K., K. Schwarz, M.L. Cadenasso, B.B. Cutts, C. Mason, J. Lim, K. Valenzuela-Garcia and H. Smith. 2017. Weaving community-university research and action partnerships for environmental justice. Action Research 16(2):173-189.

Schwarz, K., R.V. Pouyat, and I. Yesilonis. 2016. Legacies of lead in charm city’s soil: Lessons from the Baltimore Ecosystem Study. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 13(2):209.

Herrmann, D.L., K. Schwarz, W.D. Shuster, A. Berland, B.C. Chaffin, A.S. Garmestani, and M.E. Hopton. 2016. Ecology for the shrinking city. BioScience 66(11):965-973.

Schwarz, K., B.B. Cutts, J.K. London, and M.L. Cadenasso. 2016. Growing gardens in shrinking cities: A solution to the soil lead problem? Sustainability 8(2):141.

Cutts, B.B., D. Fang, K. Hornik, J.K. London, K. Schwarz and M.L. Cadenasso. 2016. Media frames and shifting places of environmental (in)justice: a qualitative historical geographic information system method. Environmental Justice 9(1):23-28.

Berland, A., K. Schwarz, D. L. Herrmann, M.E. Hopton. 2015. How environmental justice patterns are shaped by place: terrain and tree canopy in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. Cities and the Environment 8(1):Article 1.

Schwarz, K., M. Fragkias, C.G. Boone, W. Zhou, M. McHale, J.M. Grove, J. O’Neil-Dunne, J.P. McFadden, G.L. Buckley, D. Childers, L. Ogden, S. Pincetl, D. Pataki, A. Whitmer, and M.L. Cadenasso. 2015. Trees grow on money: urban tree canopy cover and environmental justice. PLoS ONE 10(4).

Zhou, W., M.L. Cadenasso, K. Schwarz, and S.T.A. Pickett. 2014. Quantifying spatial heterogeneity in urban landscapes: integrating visual interpretation and object-based classification. Remote Sensing 6(4):3369-3386.

Schwarz, K., K.C. Weathers, S.T.A. Pickett, R.G. Lathrop, R.V. Pouyat, and M.L. Cadenasso. 2013. A comparison of three empirically based, spatially explicit predictive models of residential soil Pb concentrations in Baltimore, Maryland USA: understanding the variability within cities. Environmental Geochemistry and Health 35(4):495-510.

Schwarz, K., S.T.A. Pickett, R.G. Lathrop, K.C. Weathers, R.V. Pouyat, and M.L. Cadenasso.  2012. The effects of the urban built environment on the spatial distribution of lead in residential soils. Environmental Pollution 163:32-39.

Osmond, D.L., N.M. Nadkarni, C.T. Driscoll, E. Andrews, A.J. Gold, S.R. Broussard Allred, A.R. Berkowitz, M.W. Klemens, T.L. Loecke, M.A. McGarry, K. Schwarz, M.L. Washington and P.M. Groffman. 2010. The role of interface organizations in science communication and understanding. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 8(6):306-313.

Boone, C.G., M.L. Cadenasso, J.M. Grove, K. Schwarz, and G.L. Buckley. 2010. Landscape, vegetation characteristics, and group identity in an urban and suburban watershed: why the 60s matter. Urban Ecosystems 13(3):255-271.

Zhou, W., K. Schwarz, and M.L. Cadenasso. 2010. Mapping urban landscape heterogeneity: agreement between visual interpretation and digital classification approaches. Landscape Ecology 25(1):53-67.

Cadenasso, M.L., S.T.A. Pickett, and K. Schwarz. 2007. Spatial heterogeneity in urban ecosystems: reconceptualizing land cover and a framework for classification. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 5(2):80-88.

Grove, J.M., M.L. Cadenasso, W.R. Burch, Jr., S.T.A. Pickett, K.Schwarz, J. O’Neil-Dunne, M. Wilson, A. Troy, and C.Boone. 2006. Data and methods comparing social structure and vegetation structure of urban neighborhoods in Baltimore, Maryland. Society and Natural Resources 19:117-136.