Alma Galvan Duran - Director of Community Training and Engagement at the Migrant Clinicians Network (MCN)
The Southern IPM Center awards IPM Ambassador Travel Grants to individuals whose work directly addresses the National IPM Roadmap’s call to advance the development, communication, and effective implementation of IPM strategies and technologies, with the goal of improving pest management, mitigating resistance, and sustaining and innovating control measures. The IPM Ambassador Travel Grant provides support to travel to conferences, meetings, or workshops to bring IPM to new audiences.
One of our recent IPM Ambassador Awardees is Alma Galvan Duran, the Director of Community Training and Engagement at the Migrant Clinicians Network (MCN). She brings more than 30 years of experience improving health outcomes in underserved communities. Her work focuses on training, technical assistance, and curriculum development for community health workers and organizations.
Alma Duran presenting at the 2025 International IPM Symposium in San Diego, California.
In March 2025, Alma presented at the 11th International IPM Symposium in San Diego, where she engaged a diverse audience of IPM professionals from academia, industry, government, and related sectors. Her session highlighted practical, evidence-based strategies for engaging agricultural communities and introduced MCN’s pesticide education materials developed specifically for farmworkers. The key focus is to ensure that resources are culturally appropriate and accessible, particularly for Limited English Proficiency (LEP) and low-literacy audiences. Through her presentation, Alma emphasized the importance of making IPM information both accessible and actionable. She shared practical strategies for reaching populations that might not otherwise be reached, and also underscored the need to present technical information in ways that are trusted and relevant to the communities being served.
Attending the symposium deepened Alma’s understanding of the vital role that clear, practical communication plays in connecting IPM professionals with agricultural communities. It also strengthened her integration of IPM concepts with community engagement best practices. As a result of the connections she built, Alma went on to participate in the Advisory Project Focus Group for the NYS Integrated Pest Management Program (NYSIPM) and Pest Safety Education Program (PSEP), further extending the impact of her work.