May 11, 2004

Two Boise State Students Win National Research Award

Two Boise State University students majoring in environmental health, Annie Jenott and Logan Freeman, were selected as winners of the National Undergraduate Research Project sponsored by the National Environmental Health Association (NEHA). Jenott and Freeman will travel to Anchorage, Alaska to attend the NEHA educational conference and exhibition May 9-12 to present their work and receive recognition for their research. Jenott’s research on food safety in restaurants and Freeman’s research on disaster planning in the event of a SARS outbreak have direct relevance to public health issues in Idaho. Both students worked with Boise State health studies professor Dale Stephenson as their adviser and mentor. Jenott, a 1998 graduate of Eagle High School, received recognition for her work titled “The Practice of Active Managerial Control to Promote Food Safety during the Cooling of Hot Foods.” Jenott developed training methods and monitoring techniques to assist public food establishments in complying with Idaho state regulations to cool foods from 140 degrees Fahrenheit to 45 degrees Fahrenheit within six hours, to minimize exposure to pathogenic spores. She worked with five food establishments in the Boise area to apply these safety promotion tools. Jenott will receive her bachelor of science degree from Boise State on May 15 and plans to move to Phoenix and pursue a career in environmental health. Freeman, a junior at Boise State who graduated from Bishop Kelly High School in 1999, received recognition for his poster presentation titled "Evaluation of a Local Health Departments’ Communicable Disease Outbreak and Emergency Response Plan through the Performance of a Disease Outbreak Simulation.” His research involved the reporting of results, conclusions and recommendations acquired from the performance of an exercise simulating a SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) outbreak. -30- Contact Dale Stephenson Health Studies 208 426-3795 DaleStephenson@boisestate.edu Media contact Pat Pyke communications and marketing 208 426-1987 ppyke@boisestate.edu