A CSU journey through prevention science: From student to staff

Attending college in Florida, Mingola looked at the traditional trajectories for careers and decided she wanted to be a teacher, something that was familiar. However, she started to see major problems and systemic issues in the teaching profession, which diminished her desire to be a teacher. Those issues led to a new passion to get to the root cause of an issue and have the power to fix it by changing the process and intervening before it happens to others.

During her last year of the teaching program, Mingola’s father died, which ultimately led to her dropping out of the program and taking a hiatus from academics.

When she was ready to come back to her degree in education, Mingola found her way to CSU and visited the School of Education. She realized she didn’t want to be a teacher but was still passionate about helping and supporting teachers and communities. They directed her to human development and family studies, a degree she was not familiar with, but quickly found out was exactly where she needed to be.

“I have never felt so supported and so welcomed,” said Mingola about the CSU Department of Human Development and Family Studies. “Especially at such a huge college campus.”

Mingola completed her bachelor’s degree in human development and family studies, with a concentration in prevention and intervention science as a first-generation college student. She went on to earn her master’s degree in HDFS as well in the prevention science specialization.

Now, Mingola is an associate researcher and a project manager with a focus on substance use and misuse prevention at the CSU Prevention Research Center. Here, she collaborates with communities and agencies throughout Colorado to provide practical guidance on how to incorporate the latest research into best practices for implementing evidence-based prevention programs.

Why prevention matters

While completing her master’s degree, Mingola had the opportunity to work in the CSU Prevention Research Center as a graduate student. She found that the work she’d always dreamed of was a reality here.

“I never really knew what prevention science was,” said Mingola. “It’s so cool to me that I get to do the things I’ve always wanted to do here at the Prevention Research Center, and in a way that I never knew existed. The center provides me an opportunity to make my work very meaningful to my own personal story.”

At the center, Mingola works directly with communities, schools, organizations, and families, with a primary focus on substance use and misuse prevention. She starts by helping groups select an evidence-based prevention program that best fits their needs. Then, she helps them adapt that program in an effective, research-based way that will be most beneficial for the individuals and their unique community. She continues to help support successful implementation, with the organization leading the process. Finally, she evaluates the program’s effectiveness and long-term sustainability.

“We use evidence-based and research-informed methods that we know are going to work,” said Mingola. “Not only because we say they are going to work, but because the science says so, and science does not lie.”

The CSU Prevention Research Center works to prevent problems like substance use disorder, overdose, suicide, dropout, violence, and more. The research team that Mingola is part of takes the most recent prevention science research and puts it to practice, also known as ‘research to practice’ or ‘translational science.’ The center makes the research easy to understand and easy to use, which leads to communities seeing actual positive changes.

“Prevention ultimately saves lives,” said Mingola. “It’s also shown to be cost effective. The mantra we use at our center is that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

Visit the CSU Prevention Research Center website to learn more about the meaningful work happening there.