projectfoodnow@gmail.com

My name is Dr. P. Qasimah Boston, I am an activist with expertise in global public health. I have always been inquisitive about the strengths, assets and the power of various cultures especially related to health and wellness since I grew up in an international environment, Boston, Massachusetts. These questions have been at the foundation of my research endeavors as a way to derive facts, put them into action and to help engage diverse communities to participate in activities that ultimately improve quality of life. My research is important to the field of public health and to humanity because my aim to comprehend health disparities and health inequities is for the implementation of solutions, practices, empowerment strategies that end health disparities and health inequity. I have worked with and have been funded by organizations, national, state, city, hospital, academic and global partners to examine food insecurity, environmental injustice, mental health, stress, obesity, COVID-19, zero emissions, health assessments, underaged drinking, violence, community engagement, blood pressure and other topics. I am a mixed methodologist with experience in logistic regression, community based participatory research, participatory action research, photovoice, digital storytelling, participatory evaluation, expert panel review processes and have mentored doctorate level students in that respect. 

Bruce W. Strouble Ph.D. is a professional sustainability advocate and anti-racism educator and researcher residing in Tallahassee, Florida. Much of Dr. Strouble’s work has focused on pursuing environmental justice and improving political participation in African American communities. He currently works as an adjunct professor at Florida A&M University and currently serves as the Sustainability Coordinator for the City of Tallahassee. He is a founding member of Citizens for a Sustainable Future, a  Fellow at the Institute for the Polarities of Democracy, a Senior Fellow of the National Environmental Leadership Program, and also serves on the Board of Directors for the Capital City Chamber of Commerce, Rethink Energy Florida and the Advisory Board of the Moving Forward Network. Strouble’s belief that thriving democracy and community participation are the keys to developing sustainable African American communities has been a guiding premise in all his work. 

jillj@usc.edu

Jill Johnston, PhD is an Assistant Professor and Director of Community Engagement in the Division of Environmental Health at University of Southern California. She is an exposure scientist and environmental epidemiologist with long-standing relationships with environmental justice communities. Her research focuses on addressing unequal exposures to harmful contaminants that affect the health of working poor and communities of color. She engages in collaborations with grassroots organizations to conduct community-engaged action-oriented research on environmental health disparities. She has fostered strong partnerships and trust with local and regional organizations to build innovative community engagement and participatory research activities on environmental health and science. Dr. Johnston received her PhD in environmental sciences and engineering from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she studied hazardous waste sites and industrial animal production.

darahn@ku.edu

I am an atmospheric scientist that studies the physical environment looking at both small scale processes such as the distribution of surface temperature over urban areas (the urban heat island) to large scale processes such as shifts of wind patterns at the end of the century that are related to a changing climate. The urban heat island is related to heat stress and can change the atmospheric stability, which influences how much pollution is trapped near the surface. Both of these meteorological features affect public health. I explore these topics through observations (including several field campaigns that involved aircraft and weather balloon measurements) in conjunction with numerical weather simulations.

laumbach@eohsi.rutgers.edu

Rob Laumbach MD, MPH, CIH is a physician-scientist who works closely with communities to improve every-day environmental health conditions. His work has focused on air and drinking water quality in environmental justice communities in New Jersey. Over the past decade, Rob has worked with partners in the Coalition for Healthy Ports to evaluate and reduce the health impacts of diesel air pollution in port-adjacent communities.  Rob assists community members in measuring and assessing local air quality and in interpreting and applying air pollution health research to help to solve the real-world environmental problems faced by their communities. He also assists community stakeholders in accessing the scientific and academic resources of Rutgers University, promoting bidirectional communication and partnerships between communities and researchers.

Julian received a Master of Public Health (MPH) and a Certificate in Environmental and Occupational Health at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, through a fellowship with the Bloomberg American Health Initiative. His graduate research work focused on assessing health impacts of the Port of Providence. Julian was a fellow with the Kresge Foundation’s Emerging Leader in Public Health Initiative and was recognized by the deBeaumont Foundation in the inaugural national list of “40 Under 40 in Public Health.” He is a member of the American Public Health Association (APHA) Environment Section’s Environmental Justice committee and co-authored APHA’s Environmental Justice Policy.

Ana is an Assistant Professor of Professional Practice in the Environmental Policy and Sustainability Management graduate program at The New School University. She also serves as the Co-Director of the Tishman Environment and Design Center at The New School. Prior to The New School she served as the Director of Environmental Justice and Community Development at the Ironbound Community Corporation, in her hometown of Newark, NJ. Ana’s professional practice is focused on advancing environmental justice through collaborative work with communities on issues ranging from cumulative impacts, air pollution, local planning tools and zero waste systems. Her current practice includes research on the equity implications of state level climate and energy policies and the launch of a national environmental justice movement fellowship for EJ activists housed at the Tishman Center. Ana serves on the 4th New York City Panel on Climate Change as well as the Board of Trustees for the New Jersey Environmental Justice Alliance, Ironbound Community Corporation, Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA) and the Victoria Foundation. 

betomtz.lugo@gmail.com

Beto Lugo Martinez is an environmental justice organizer and the executive director of the grassroots organization CleanAirNow in Kansas City which was started by a neighborhood group. He serves to raise community voices in the fight against environmental racism and to overcome systemic exclusion of frontline communities from the decision making process. His lived experience, growing up fenceline to a petrochemical facility turned superfund site, that formulated DDT, agrochemicals and other pesticides, and left behind legacy contamination, continues to drive his work at the intersection of environmental justice and public health. Beto is currently involved in an environmental health research study centered in his childhood neighborhood in Southern California. He is also part of the formation of the California Environmental Justice Coalition, and member of the EJ Leadership Forum and serves in the Advisory Board of the Moving Forward Network. Beto’s contributions to the movement include organizing, policy that prioritizes environmental justice and community led research amongst many other community engaged initiatives including the deployment of a community led air monitoring network that directly influenced state policy. Beto has co-authored multiple academic publications on community based participatory research, air pollution, data accessibility, community engagement and presented his work in multiple NIEHS Environmental Health Sciences Core Centers. He also serves on the advisory board for the Southern California Center for Children’s Environmental Health Sciences Translational Research (SC-CCEHTR) and the Advisory Board for the Community Engagement Core of the Southern California Environmental Health Sciences Center at USC (SCEHSC). In August 2021 Beto was invited to serve on the Federal Clean Air Act Advisory Committee, to represent a grassroots frontline perspective. He is committed to finding ways to improve environmental literacy, community expertise and academic expertise through Science and Community Action Network.