ASU Doctoral Student Receives Fellowship to Study Drug Abuse in the Hispanic Community

While drug abuse continues to impact the Hispanic community in the U.S., the number of researchers studying the problem remains relatively small. Francisco Alatorre, a doctoral student in the School of Justice and Social Inquiry, hopes that his dissertation research on Hispanic youth, drug abuse and delinquency will help contribute to the understanding of this issue.

In early June, he attended a Summer Research Training Institute at the University of Houston to collaborate with experts in the field and discuss ways to address this complex problem. The National Hispanic Science Network on Drug Abuse awards these fellowships to promising graduate students who are committed to eliminating drug use within this demographic.

"It is an honor to receive this award," Alatorre says. "The experience allowed me to develop a strong critical sense of my own research, as well as interact with leading Hispanic drug abuse researchers, which provided me with a better understanding of this complicated issue."

A native of Mexico, Alatorre has always been interested in promoting healthy lifestyles in the Latino community. After graduating from the School of Law at the Universidad Autonoma de Guadalajara, he moved to Arizona to pursue his graduate degree at ASU.

During his academic career, Alatorre worked as a research associate at ASU's Southwest Interdisciplinary Research Center and later served as a consultant for Chicanos por la Causa Inc., where he helped create the Access to Care Summit for Hispanic Youth and co-wrote on a grant to fund HIV/AIDS research within the Latino community.

Alatorre is also working on a manuscript with his mentor, Felipe Castro, about health promotion in the Hispanic population, and completing a publishable chapter is just one of the many plans that he has for his future.

“My greatest hope is to not only to publish and disseminate high quality research, but also teach and prepare the next generation of researchers in this field,” he says.


Lower Photo: ASU doctoral student Francisco Alatorre received funding to attend a multidisciplinary training institute on Hispanics and drug research at the University of Houston.