Environmental & Social Justice

Black In Environment is hosting #BlackInEnvironWeek on April 19th - 23rd with a series of events to highlight and build community among Black environmentalists globally. Dr. Regan Patterson, 2018 Switzer Fellow, is the co-founder and co-organizer of Black In Environment, a member organization of Black in X.

Jessica Davenport's opinion article in the San Francisco Estuary News highlights the importance of equitable access to nature and community engagement in conservation in the Bay Area.

Acres of asphalt parking lots, unshaded roads, dense apartment complexes and neighborhoods with few parks have taken their toll on the poor. As climate change accelerates, low-income districts in the Southwestern United States are 4 to 7 degrees hotter in Fahrenheit — on average — than wealthy neighborhoods in the same metro regions, University of California, Davis, researchers have found in a new analysis.

Lauren Howe shared her insights on collecting and leveraging grantee demographic data in a recent article by Peak Grantmaking: CONNECTing on Tracking Grantee Demographics. Lauren is the Program Administrator for Healthy Food for Denver's Kids and a 2018 Switzer Fellow.

Switzer Fellow Susannah Lerman, Research Ecologist with the USDA Forest Service, is a co-lead of a partnership with the University of Minnesota that will establish the first urban long-term ecosystem research (LTER) site in the Midwest. Funded by a $7.1 million grant from the National Science Foundation, the Minneapolis-Saint Paul (MSP) Long-Term Ecological Research Program will focus on the dynamics of urban nature and the urban social system in the face of rapid environmental and social change.

We are pleased to announce that Luis Alexis Rodríguez-Cruz was listed as one of Grist's 50 Fixers for 2021.

The UC Center Sacramento announced its sixth annual Emerging Scholars Award for Excellence in Research and Public Policy. The award recognizes excellence in graduate student research with a direct impact on public policy. Recipients of the Emerging Scholars Award receive a $500 prize and deliver an invited policy lecture at the UC Center.

Isa Gaillard is working with The Greenlining Institute's Environmental Equity team as a Program Manager for the community of practice project. For this project, the institute is partnering with Forth to develop a national community of practice that will include organizations across five states and will focus on advancing clean and equitable transportation for all. The community of practice format balances the community, networking, and learning components of an educational cohort while also maintaining the policy advocacy focus of a coalition.

In November 2020 Environmental Health News annouced their second round of Agents of Change in Environmental Health fellows, which includes Regan Patterson, a Transportation Equity Research Fellow at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation. From the EHN website: Amplifying voices of next generation environmental health and justice leaders has grown in relevance and urgency as we face a public health pandemic, economic collapse, racial injustice, and increasing effects of climate change.