Dr. Taylor Arnold, Assistant Professor in Family and Community Medicine at Wake Forest University School of Medicine, and Pacino Mancillas, Partner at the Hispanic Contractors Association of the Carolinas, Inc., recently shared the results of their collaborative research at the Society for Applied Anthropology Annual Meeting. Their presentation focused on the safety challenges faced by Hispanic construction workers—a topic at the heart of the 2026 conference theme, “The Everyday Practice of Applied Anthropology.”
This theme highlighted the value of research partnerships that tackle real-world problems, perfectly aligning with the mission of the Community Partnered Research Award that supported Dr. Arnold and Mr. Mancillas’s pilot study, “A Pilot Study of Safety and Knowledge Acquisition among Hispanic Construction Workers in North Carolina.”
As panelists on a session about educational anthropology and immigrant communities, Dr. Arnold and Mr. Mancillas emphasized the significance of culturally responsive research methods—approaches that actively involve community leaders in examining issues that matter most to their communities. The conference also offered opportunities to connect with other scholars and students, further expanding interdisciplinary and community-focused research networks.
This collaborative effort perfectly reflects the core mission of the CTSI community engagement program: to foster genuine collaboration, encourage mutual learning, and translate community-engaged research into broader academic and practical conversations with real-world impact. We applaud Dr. Arnold and Mr. Mancillas for embodying these values and for raising the profile of community-engaged research partnerships on a national stage.
This theme highlighted the value of research partnerships that tackle real-world problems, perfectly aligning with the mission of the Community Partnered Research Award that supported Dr. Arnold and Mr. Mancillas’s pilot study, “A Pilot Study of Safety and Knowledge Acquisition among Hispanic Construction Workers in North Carolina.”
As panelists on a session about educational anthropology and immigrant communities, Dr. Arnold and Mr. Mancillas emphasized the significance of culturally responsive research methods—approaches that actively involve community leaders in examining issues that matter most to their communities. The conference also offered opportunities to connect with other scholars and students, further expanding interdisciplinary and community-focused research networks.
This collaborative effort perfectly reflects the core mission of the CTSI community engagement program: to foster genuine collaboration, encourage mutual learning, and translate community-engaged research into broader academic and practical conversations with real-world impact. We applaud Dr. Arnold and Mr. Mancillas for embodying these values and for raising the profile of community-engaged research partnerships on a national stage.
For more Community and Stakeholder Research Engagement Program resources and services, please visit the program webpage.