Biography

Dr. Alfonso A. Aranda is an Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies at Sac State, and a passionate scholar-activist dedicated to advancing environmental justice and community engagement. He holds a Ph.D. in Geography from the University of California, Davis, where his research focuses on environmental health problems in agriculturally-structured and farmworker communities. Dr. Aranda's expertise lies in conducting community-based participatory research (CBPR) to collaboratively assess health risks and protect environmental public health.

As the son of farmworkers, Alfonso's commitment to bridging academia and local communities is evident through his work as a principal investigator, mentor, and educator. He leads projects like the Knights Landing Environmetal Health Project in Knights Landing, CA, fostering participant-led approaches to environmental justice research. His collaborations with local resident experts and interdisciplinary student- and faculty-researchers have guided evidence-based interventions and sparked substantial community actions. Dr. Aranda mentors numerous students, fostering critical thinking and a sense of belonging, and teaches courses emphasizing environmental sociology. His latest work, which outlines a community-led environmental health assessment survey and resulting community actions in the Knights Landing community, can be found in the Journal of Community Science (2024).

Courses That I Teach

• ENVS-10 (Introduction to Environmental Sciences)
• ENVS-11 (Environmental Issues and Critical Thinking)
• ENVS-110 (Environmental Health)
• ENVS-170 (Environmental Justice)

Peer-Reviewed Publications

• Aranda, A. A., Kelty, J. S., Manukian, S., Pardo, E., Jabbari, K., Schmidt, R. J., ... & Knights Landing Promotoras. (2024). Environmental health assessment by local environmental justice experts for evidence‐based decision‐making in an agricultural community of Northern California. Community Science, 3(3), e2024CSJ000088.
• Deeb-Sossa, N., Manzo, R., Aranda, A., & Kelty, J. S. (2024). Cultivating university students' critical sense of belonging through community-responsive scholar-activism. Collaborations (Coral Gables, Fla.), 7(1), 2.
• Deeb-Sossa, N., Manzo, R. D., Kelty, J., & Aranda, A. (2022). Community-responsive scholar-activist research: conceptualizing capacity building and sustainability in a Northern California community-university partnership. Journal of community practice, 30(1), 71-83.