Ramona Denby-Brinson has built her career by changing the conversations about teen pregnancy, foster care, and social policy for decades. Now the conversation is about her. Denby-Brinson has become the first female researcher to win UNLV's top annual research award.

She earned the university's 2014 Harry Reid Silver State Research Award for her work on social services, including family and children welfare, the foster system, and children's mental health. She is also a senior resident scholar at the UNLV Lincy Institute. 

Ramona Denby-Brinson is tackling Nevada's shortage of mental health providers. She was instrumental in organizing the university's Mental and Behavioral Health Coalition, which consists of several health-related academic disciplines. UNLV faculty are launching a new curriculum this summer that will create a pipeline of healthcare professionals specializing in children's mental health. Taught by faculty across health and counseling fields, the program will train graduate students to work with kids suffering from severe mental health disorders, have a history of violence, or who have experienced traumatic events.

Students from psychology, educational counseling, addictions, counseling, marriage and family therapy, social work and nursing will work together to exchange ideas and develop comprehensive treatment plans - the results of which will be examined in the research project. The program and research project are funded through a $1.4 million federal grant.

"The rewarding part is when you get a chance to use your research discoveries to change policy, to change programs, and to bring attention to how we're labeling kids, and how even a minimal level of support and investment can help children live normal and productive lives," Denby-Brinson said.

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A bacteriophage study which began at Truckee Meadows Community College in the fall has already produced results with five previously unknown phages, and the research is now expanding.TMCC students have named their finds, and will add information about the new bacteriophages into a national database. A phage, also known as a bacteriophage, is a virus that can infect or kill bacteria. Studying them can lead to breakthroughs in treating bacteria that are harmful to humans and other animals.

"The soil phages project is ongoing - we have electron micrographs of five phages and two high quality genetic sequences," said Dr. Laura Briggs, Biology Instructor. "What has spun out of this is an idea to expand the exploration - looking for phages in regional waterways, for the purpose of treating bacterial infections in fish at hatcheries. So we approached the local, northern Nevada, Sagebrush Chapter of Trout Unlimited in seeking a research grant."

The official title of the grant application is the Sagebrush Chapter of TU - Conservation Grant Program, "Fly Fishers for Phage." Other partners in the grant include the Nevada System of Higher Education (NSHE), Nevada NASA Space grant, NV INBRE, and the HHMI Science Education Alliance. For more information about research at TMCC, call the Biology Department at 775-673-8251.