My research includes disputes over environmental causation of illness, community response to toxic waste-induced disease, biomonitoring and household exposure to toxics, race and class differences in exposure to environmental hazards, health social movements,and the Jewish cultural experience in the Catskill Mountains resort area.
My research includes disputes over environmental causation of illness, community response to toxic waste-induced disease, biomonitoring and household exposure to toxics, social movements in health, and the Jewish experience in the Catskill Mountains resort area. My most recent books are
Illness and the Environment: A Reader in Contested Medicine
;
Catskill Culture: A Mountain Rat's Memories of the Great Jewish Resort Area
;
In the Catskills: A Century of the Jewish Experience in 'The Mountains'
; and
Social Movements in Health
. I am finishing up a book,
Contested Illnesses: Toward a New Environmental Health Movement
, and revising my reader
Perspectives in Medical Sociology
for its fourth edition.
One of my projects examines labor-environment coalitions, and another examines the intersection of breast cancer advocacy and environmental justice. I co-lead the Contested Illnesses Research Group with Professor Rachel Morello-Frosch. I direct the Community Outreach Core of Brown's Superfund Basic Research Program [http://www.brown.edu/Research/SBRP/] and direct the Ethical and Social Implications component of Brown's National Science Foundation NIRT project in nanotechnology [http://www.engin.brown.edu/Facilities/LINC/NSF-NIRT.htm]. My newest project is "Katrina and the Built Environment: Spatial and Social Impacts," a multidisciplinary effort with four other colleagues, funded by the National Science Foundation. [http://www.s4.brown.edu/katrina/index.html]
I have a joint appointment in Environmental Studies, which offers B.A., Sc.B., and M.A. degrees [http://envstudies.brown.edu/env/index.php]. I am also affiliated with the Committee on Science, Technology, and Science, which offers an undergraduate concentration [http://www.brown.edu/Faculty/COSTS/]. I am an associate member of the Program in Judaic Studies [http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Judaic_Studies/].
I teach the following undergraduate courses: Environmental Sociology: An Environmental Justice Approach; Perceptions of Mental Illness; Contested Environmental Diseases; and a first-year seminar on Environment and Society; and the following graduate seminars: Social Movements in Health; Health Institutions and Providers; Qualitative Methods and Field Work.
CURRENT
National Science Foundation: "Flame Retardant Chemicals: Their Social Discovery as a Case Study for Emerging Contaminants" ($432,676) 2009-2012 (PI)
National Institutes of Health: "Ethical and Legal Challenges in Communicating Biomonitoring and Personal Exposure Results to Participants" ($1,826,012) 2009-2014 (co-PI)
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (Superfund Basic Research Program): "Reuse in RI: A State-Based Approach to Complex Exposures" ($11,520,320) 2005-2009; renewed $15,392,906, 2009-2014 (co-PI/Community Outreach Core Director)
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences: "Formative Center for the Evaluation of Environmental Impacts on Fetal Development - Children's Environmental Health Center ($2,289,097) 2009-2012 (co-PI and Director of Community Outreach and Translation Core)
National Science Foundation "Northeast Ethics Education Partnership for Research Ethics/Cultural Competence Training" ($397,984). 2010-2013 (Co-PI)
National Science Foundation "New Directions in Environmental Ethics: Emerging Contaminants, Emerging Technologies, and Beyond" ($557,588) 2012-2015 (PI)
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences "Virtual Consortium for Translational/Transdisciplinary Environmental Research: 'Ethical and Legal Challenges in Communicating Individual Biomonitoring and Personal Exposure Results to Study Participants: Guidance for Researchers and Institutional Review Boards.'" ($1,205,048) 2012-2014. (Co-PI)
UNDER REVIEW
NIH "Data Sharing and Privacy Protection in Digital-Age Environmental Health Studies" ($1,987,867). 2012-2017 (Co-PI)
PAST
- Wayland Collegium 1986-1987: Democracy, Science and Knowledge: The Participation of an Informed Public in Social Applications of Science and Technology ($50,000) - PI
- Brown University Graduate School Small Grant: Community Response to Toxic Wastes 1992 ($1,500) - PI
- Littauer Foundation: The Catskills as a Repository of Jewish Culture ($5,000) 1993-1994 - PI
- Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation: Social Stratification and Environmental Health, 1993-1994 ($43,000) - PI
Brown University Graduate School Small Grant: Using a "Safety Index" to Examine Injury Morbidity and Mortality, 1996 ($1,800) - PI
Brown University Graduate School Small Grant: Contested Illnesses -- Disputes Over Environmentally-Induced Disease, 1998-1999 ($1,000) - PI
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation: Contested Illnesses -- Disputes Over Environmentally-Induced Disease, 1999-2002 ($249,973) - PI
National Science Foundation: Citizen-Science Alliances in Contested Environmental Diseases, 2000-2003 ($126,091) - PI
Salomon Research Grant: $10,000. 2002-2003 "The Precautionary Principle." - PI
National Science Foundation: Blue and Green Shades of Health: The Social Construction of Health Risks in the Labor and Environmental Movements, 2004-2007 ($180,000) - PI
National Science Foundation: "Doctoral Dissertation Research (Patricia Widener): Transnational Activism, Oil Politics and Environmental Justice in Ecuador." 2003-2004 ($7,300)PI
National Science Foundation "Doctoral Dissertation Research (Brian Mayer): Blue and Green Shades of Health: The Social Construction of Health Risks in the Labor and Environmental Movements" - 2004-2005 ($7,500) - PI
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences: "Linking Breast Cancer Advocacy and Environment Justice" ($959,800) 2004-2008 - co-PI
National Science Foundation: "The 'Research Right-to-Know': Ethics and Values in Communicating Research Data to Individuals and Communities" ($300,000) 2005-2008 co-PI
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (Superfund Basic Research Program): "Reuse in RI: A State-Based Approach to Complex Exposures" ($11,520,320) 2005-2009; renewed $15,392,906, 2009-2014 (co-PI/Community Outreach Core Director)
National Science Foundation: "Micropatterned Nanotopography Chips for Probing the Cellular Basis of Biocompatibility and Toxicity" ($1,200,000) 2005-2009 (co-PI/Director of Social and Ethical Implications Core)
National Science Foundation: "Katrina and the Built Environment: Spatial and Social Impacts" ($99,800) 2005-2006 (co-PI)
National Science Foundation: "Disaster, Resilience, and the Built Environment on the Gulf Coast" ($749,420) 2007-2010 (co-PI)
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (Superfund Basic Research Program): Supplement to Community Outreach Core of "Reuse in RI: A State-Based Approach to Complex Exposures" ($36,000) 2008-2009 (co-PI)
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, Partnerships in Environmental Public Health supplement to "Linking Breast Cancer Advocacy and Environment Justice"( $139,805) 2008-2009 (co-PI)
Environmental Protection Agency, CARE grant awarded to the Environmental Justice League of Rhode Island. ($100,000) 2008-2010 (co-PI)
National Science Foundation: "Flame Retardant Chemicals: Their Social Discovery as a Case Study for Emerging Contaminants" ($432,676) 2009-2012 (PI)
Brown University, Swearer Center for Public Service: "The Community Environmental College of Rhode Island" ($10,000) 2009-2010 (PI)
