SYLVIA HOOD WASHINGTON, PhD, ND, MSE, MPH
University of Illinois at Chicago
School of Public Health
Chicago IL, 60651
US
Research Associate Professor
Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Division
University of Illinois at Chicago, School of Public Health
None
Office:
312-413-3771
Pager:
630-606-1804
Cell:
630-690-5420
e-Mail:
Education:
2008 UIC School of Public Health, MPH Epidemiology
Degree was undertaken for a NSF professional development grant, Engineering, Infrastructures and Environmental Justice. Coursework consisted of the following classes: Biostatistics, Epidemiology of Chronic Disease, Epidemiology of Infectious Disease, Genetics Epidemiology, Epidemiological Methods, SAS, GIS, and Qualitative Methods. CAPSTONE: History of Cancer Incidence in Dupage County and the Kerr McGee Superfund Sites.
Clayton College of Natural Health, Birmingham, Alabama.
2002. ND, Doctorate of Naturopathy (with Honors). Research emphasis on environmental health, environmental illnesses (asthma and multiple chemical sensitivity) and their relationship to industrial and scientific developments in the twentieth and twenty first centuries.
Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio.
2000 Ph.D, History of Science, Technology and the Environment. Dissertation, Packing Them In: A Twentieth Century Working Class Environmental History. A comparative history of early environmental activism in working class Eastern European communities in Chicago (1890-1930) and working class African American communities in Cleveland, Ohio (1920-1972) stemming from environmental and public health problems exacerbated by engineering systems and building infrastructures. Comprehensive exams: environmental history, history of science, history of technology and twentieth century American history.
1987 MS, Systems Engineering, Master Thesis: Optimal Load Management for the Space Stations Power System. A decision analysis mathematical model and computer simulation program using integer programming to examine the benefits and costs associated with managing a low earth orbit space power system.
Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio.
1980 AB., Pre-medicine and Communications.
Honors
Phi Alpha Theta
Epsilon Pi Tau
CWRU History Department, Doctoral Fellowship, 1995-2000
CWRU Systems Engineering Department, Society of Women Engineers Graduate Scholarship, 1984-1985
Oberlin College, Weinberger Scholarship, 1978-1980
Academic/Teaching Experience
Research Associate Professor: University of Illinois, Chicago, Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences Division, School of Public Health, 2006-Present
NSF Science and Society Scholar, University of Illinois at Chicago, 2006-2009
Editor in Chief, Environmental Justice Journal, Mary Ann Liebert Publishing, Co. 2007-Present
Adjunct Full Professor, History: University of Maryland online history professor. 2005-Present
Visiting Faculty:
DePaul University, 2003-2005
Adjunct professor: environmental ethics and the history of environmental justice in 20th century America.
Full Professor, Physical Sciences/Chemistry, Elgin Community College, Elgin, IL, 2000 - 2005.
I developed an integrated and experiential learning curriculum (history, science, ethics and technology) that placed a strong emphasis on the historical and contemporary interfaces of humans with science and technology.
Associate Professor, Physical Sciences/Chemistry, Elgin Community College, Elgin, IL, 1997– 2000
Assistant Professor Physical Sciences/Chemistry, Elgin Community College, Elgin, IL, 1994-1996
Corporate Experience
Jones Day Chicago, Illinois 2008-Present
Employed as an expert witness for Lewis vs LIA (Lead Industries of America) responsible for developing an interdisciplinary environmental health history of lead exposures to children in Illinois.
NASA Lewis Research Center, Cleveland, Ohio, 1986-1992.
Senior Environmental Systems Engineer: responsible for determining potential benefits and costs to the public associated with nuclear propulsion development utilizing risk assessment and decision analysis tools, 1990 - 1992.
Electrical Engineer: responsible for developing risk analysis and decision tools that could determine environmental impacts of fires above future shuttle missions, 1987-1990.
Power Systems Engineer, NASA consulting engineer (Sverdrup Technology) : responsible for developing mathematical models and decision software to determine impacts of technological designs, 1986 - 1987.
Cleveland Electric Illuminating Company, Cleveland, Ohio, 1980-1986
Environmental Instrumentation and Control Engineer responsible for designing and modifying engineering designs at fossil fueled fire plants to ensure that they were compliant with local, state and national environmental regulations (air, water and solid, hazardous, toxic wastes), 1983 -1986.
Plant Environmental Engineer, Lake Shore Plant, responsible for the day to day environmental compliance of the 250 MW fossil fuel fired plant in all environmental phases: air, water, toxic, hazardous, and solid wastes, 1982- 1983.
Corporate Environmental Chemist responsible for providing technical interpretation and implementation of the Resource, Conservation and Recovery Act and Toxic Substance Control Act for fossil fuel fired plants, 1980-1982.
Nonprofit Experience and Grants
2006-2009 National Science Foundation, Engineering, Infrastructures and Environmental Justice professional development grant. This grant awarded through NSFs Science and Society division (effective March 2006) supports the completion of a third monograph which examines the historical intersections of engineering and public infrastructures with disparities in environmental health and environmental justice claims in the Great Lakes region. The grant also supports the development of engineering and environmental ethics workshops at Northwestern University (Environmental Engineering Department).
2007-2009 Illinois Humanities Council Steering Committee Member: Running on Empty: Conversations on Oil and Water.
2004-2005 Illinois Humanities Environmental Scholar: “Urban Conservation Movement” and Mrs. Block Beautiful”: African American Women and Environmental Struggles in Chicago, 1920-1954. Both topics address the precursive struggles by African Americans and their interracial supporters against environmental inequalities in Chicago during the segregated era preceding Brown vs. Board decision in 1954.
2004-2005 Illinois Humanities Council/National Endowment for the Humanities
Project Director and grant writer. I received a $10,000 grant to develop an environmental health and ethics documentary sponsored by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Knights of Peter Claver and DePaul University.
2004-2005 Vincentian Endowment Fund
$3,000 grants to help develop an Environmental Justice and Health documentary in conjunction with the IHC/NEH and USCCB grants.
2003-2004 Illinois Humanities Environmental Scholar: “People and the Environment”
and “Arcadian Dreams”. Both topics address the interrelationships between people,
the natural environment and public health consequences.
2002-Present National Project Director Environmental Health/Justice: Appointed in 2003 as the national Project Director for the Knights of Peter Claver, Inc.s Environmental Justice and Health project. Participated in the initiation and developed a national environmental justice oral history and literacy program for the Knights of Peter Claver, Inc., the largest black Catholic lay organization in the world. I wrote a 5 year grant Environmental Health and Justice that was accepted for funding by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops Environmental Justice Office starting in November 2002.
Selected and Forthcoming Publications
Sylvia Hood Washington is the Editor in Chief of the Environmental Justice journal, Mary Ann Liebert Publishers, Inc. 2008- present.
Sylvia Hood Washington, Packing Them In: Archaeology of Environmental Racism in Chicago. Published (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield/Lexington Books, January 2005) in both paperback and hardback versions. This monograph examines the interrelationships of race, ethnicity, politics, zoning, planning, and sanitary engineering in the creation of inequitable geographies of environmental health.
“Mrs. Block Beautiful” chapter essay on the precursive environmental activism of Chicago Urban Leagues female volunteers and para-professionals to address public health problems in the African American community between 1915 and 1965, Environmental Justice, vol. 1, issue 1 2008.
Sylvia Hood Washington, Heather Goodall and Paul C. Rosier, Echoes from the Poisoned Well, Global Memories of Environmental Injustice (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield/Lexington Books, January 2006). Lead editor and contributor for an international co-edited collection (with Paul Rosier and Heather Goodall) that examines the impact of local and global environmental policies and engineering developments from the perspectives of indigenous and minority communities who felt they were subjected to environmental inequalities.
Sylvia Hood Washington, “The Color of Trees”: African American Struggles for A Sustainable Community in Cleveland, Ohio, 1917-1970 (Forthcoming, under contract consideration with Rutgers University Press. This monograph will examine the history of sanitary engineering systems in ex-urban communities and their roles in exacerbating and ameliorating environmental health disparities. It is to be published under a new environmental justice/health book series led by Dr. Washington.
Sylvia Hood Washington, The Urban Conservation Movement, Precursive African American Environmentalism, 1918-1968(Forthcoming, under contract with Ohio University Press, Urban Life and Urban Landscape series edited by Zane Miller).
Julie Sze and Sylvia Hood Washington, Environmental Justice textbook to be published by Routledge Press (2010).
Sylvia Hood Washington, “Environmental Justice Movement” in American Social Movements. ME Sharpe, Inc. Publications, 2004.
Sylvia Hood Washington, “Environmental Planning” in Encyclopedia of Community, Berkshire/Sage Publications, 2004.
Sylvia Hood Washington, “Technology and Environment” in the Encyclopedia of World Environmental History, Berkshire/Routledge Publications, 2004.
Sylvia Hood Washington, “Transportation and Environment” in the Encyclopedia of World Environmental History, Berkshire/Routledge Publications, 2004.
Sylvia Hood Washington, “Midwest Environmental History” in the Encyclopedia of World Environmental History, Berkshire/Routledge Publications, 2004.
Sylvia Hood Washington, “Ancient Western Africa Environmental History” in the Encyclopedia of World Environmental History, Berkshire/Routledge Publications, 2004.
Sylvia Hood Washington, “Space Exploration and Environment” in the Encyclopedia of World Environmental History, Berkshire/Routledge Publications, 2004.
Sylvia Hood Washington Faces of Environmental Racism, electronic book review published on H- Environment and H-Urban, November-December, 2002.
Sylvia Hood Washington, Garbage Wars, Struggles for Environmental Justice in Chicago, book review in April 2003, Environmental History Journal.
Sylvia E. Washington, “Gender, Technology and Environmental Policy” in the Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, Vol.19, No.5, October 1999, 365-371. Copyright Sage Publications.
Sylvia E. Washington, The Greening of a Nation? Environmentalism in the United States Since 1945 book review in the Bulletin of Science, Technology and Society, Sage Publications, Vol.19, No. 4, August 1999, 332-334.
Sylvia E. Washington, Environmental Politics: Domestic and Global Dimensions in the Bulletin of Science, book review in Technology and Society, Sage Publications April 1999.
Selected Presentations
2009
January 3, 2009 Invited Speaker for the Radical Historians Organization round table “Approaches to Radical Environmental History: Methodologies and Movements “
February 7, 2009
Invited Speaker for the Wild Things 2009: Conference at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Panel: Making conservation inclusive and affordable
February 27-28, 2009, Convener and presenter at the first Environmental Justice mini-conference (Tallahassee 2009) held at the ASEH Annual Conference
April 3, 2009
Invited Speaker for the Symposium and Celebration Honoring Aldo Leopold’s Graduation Centennial from the “Yale Forest School” for the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, New Haven, Connecticut
Panel: Leopoldian Philosophy and Ethics: In the Academy and, More Important, Beyond
2007
January 18, 2007 Invited Speaker: “Understanding Environmental Health Disparities via Spatial Temporal Analysis of Engineering Infrastructures in the Urban Environment” UIC Great Lakes Seminar
March 29, 2007 Selected Presenter. “Birth of a Sustainable Nation: EJ, NIEHS and the Rise of the Environmental Health Movement” Howard University, National Conference: The State of Environmental
Justice In America 2007 Conference
April 21, 2007 Selected Presenter: “Engineering, Infrastructures and Environmental Justice: NSF Research Findings” University of Chicago, _"Rethinking Health, Culture and Society: Physician-Scholars
in the Social Sciences and Medical Humanities"
2006
American Society for Environmental History Annual Meeting: Echoes from the Poisoned Well Roundtable on edited collection.
2005
April 22, 2005, Chicago Public Radio Earth Day Book Interview with Steve Edwards on the Eighty Forty Eight Show. Discussed the major points of my first monograph, Packing Them In, and its relevance to current environmental justice policies in Chicago and in the country.
May 6, 2005: Invited speaker for the 10th Annual National Religious Partnership for the Environment Conference.
September 12, 2005: Guest lecturer, Notre Dame University (South Bend, IN) for an Environmental Theology course. Lecture on environment, race, place and technology
November 5, 2005 Invited roundtable panelist on Ethnic Studies and the History of Technology, at the joint annual meeting for the History of Science and the Society for the History of Technology.
2004
Presider of 2004: OAH panel, “Oversight or Discrimination in American Immigration Law? Panel discussion on Disabilities and Immigration Policy, 1880s-1920s” co-sponsored by the Immigration and Ethnic Society.
Invited presenter for the Theology and Ecology Program Group’s “Reconciliation: The Challenge of Environmental Racism to Catholic Theology” at the 59th Annual Convention of The Catholic Theological Society of America, June 2004.
Invited presenter for the Illinois Public Health Futures Conference: “The Role of Faith Based Environmental Justice and Health Initiatives,” March 2004.
Invited presenter for Notre Dame Universitys “Faith, Ethics and Environment” conference, November 2004.
Invited presenter for 2004 Social Science History Association meeting: “Mrs. Block Beautiful,” African American Women and Environmental Activism in Chicago, 1917-1954.
Invited speaker/author for Chicago Public Library’s Annual Book Festival, October 2004. Presentation of forthcoming monograph, Packing Them In: Archaeology of Environmental Racism in Chicago, 1865-1954
Invited speaker, “Environmental Health and Environmental Justice” conference sponsored by Lehigh Universitys Environmental Sciences program and School of Public Health. October 20, 2004
Invited consulting scholar for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops conference, “The Person, The Poor and the Common Good: A Catholic Dialogue on the Environment”, St. Paul, MN, October 29-31, 2004.
Invited speaker for Notre Dame Universitys (Indiana) Faith, Ethics and Environment Conference, Nov. 9-11, 2004: Environmental Racism and The Role of Catholic Institutions.
2003
Invited participant in American Anthropological Associations Environmental Justice Conference, November 19-23, 2000, Chicago, Illinois
Invited Participant, Environmental Racism panel, Catholic Theological Society of America, Virginia, 2004
Broken Promises, Precursive Environmental Justice Struggles in Urban America, September, 2003, Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), Milwaukee, WI
“Broken Promises, The Urban Environment and Public Health Dilemmas of African American Migrants in Chicago, 1915-1950.” 2nd Annual Race and Place Conference, University of Alabama, March 5-7, 2003.
“Tainted Harvest, PCBs and the Public Health Problems of African Americans in Chicago’s Altgeld Gardens, 1969-2000.” American Society for Environmental History Annual Meeting, Brown University, Providence, RI March 26-29, 2003
“20 Years Later: Environmental Justice Movement” Co-panelist with Lois Gibbs (Love Canal) and Dr. Beverly Wright (Deep South Environmental Justice Center). American Society for Environmental History Annual Meeting, Brown University, Providence, RI March 26-29, 2003.
2002
“Race, Environment and Health.” Invited keynote speaker for the Knights of Peter Claver
and Ladies Auxiliary (largest black Catholic lay organization in the world) Northern District Regional meeting, Detroit, MI, April 11-13 2002.
Session organizer and commentator for the panel, Planning and Environmental Inequalities in the Urban Domain. American Society for Environmental History 2002, Denver, Colorado, April 2002.
African American History month, keynote speaker. Army Corps of Engineers, February 26, 2002 Mobile, AL. Speech focused on the relationship between environmental health and engineering designs; and their roles in the environmental justice phenomena
2001
Engineering Inequality; The Environmental Impacts of the Sanitary Ship Canal on Immigrant and Working Class Communities in the Early Urban Environment presented at the Newberry Librarys Technology and Culture Seminar, March 16, 2001
2000
The paper, “Legislating Environmental Health” presented at the American Society for Environmental History 2000 conference, Tacoma, Washington
1999
Panelist in the 1999 American Collegiate School of Planning roundtable, Learning from the Past: How Planning History Informs Contemporary Planning Practice. October 22, 1999, Palmer House Hotel, Chicago, Illinois.
“The Color of Trees, The African American Search for "Green Space” " presented at the 1999 Social Science History Association meeting
The paper “Reflections and Perceptions of African Americans in the Urban Environment” accepted for presentation at the 1999 American Society for Literature and the Environment meeting
“Packing Them In: Working Class Environmentalism in Chicagos Meat Packing Industry, 1915-1930” presented at the American Society Environmental History, Tucson, Arizona, April 1999.
“Gender, Technology and Environmental Policy” presented at the 14th Annual National Association of Science, Technology and Society Meeting, March 4-6, 1999, Baltimore, Maryland
Presided over the following panels at the 14th annual meeting of the National Association of Science, Technology and Society: “Ethical Considerations/Global Warming” and “Relating Science and Technology Education to the Humanities”, March 4-6, 1999, Baltimore, Maryland.
1998
“Perspectives of the Common Ground: Immigrant Response to the Urban Environment”. Presented at the October, 1998 Social Science History Association, Chicago, Illinois
“Utilization of History of Science/Technology in Honors Science Courses” Presenter and moderator at the College of Dupage Honors Faculty Workshop, April 17, 1998, Glen Ellyn, Illinois
“International History of Environmental Resource Utilization, Exploitation and Pollution” presented at the 5th Annual Internationalizing the Curriculum Conference, Midwest Institute, Kalamazoo, Michigan, April 2-4, 1998
“Persuasion or Propaganda, Communication Efforts by the ACS News Service” and “Perspectives of the Common Ground: A Social-Cultural Analysis of Earth Day 1970.” Papers presented at the 13th National STS Conference, March 5-7, 1998, Naperville, Illinois.
1997
Chair and discussant for ethno-politics panel, Illinois Political Science Association, October 25, 1997
Research Interests
My research interests are environmental epidemiology, biostatistics, surveillance, GIS to help understand the phenomena of environmental health disparities and their relationship to environmental pollution stemming from industrialization and urbanization. I am also interested in environmental literacy, health cognition and activism among African Americans, Africans, Latinos and ethnic immigrant populations and how these people respond to environmental degradation and environmental health problems in their communities as a function of their socio-economic status. I also have a strong interest and publication record in environmental ethics, philosophy and the history of environmental health disparities/justice.
Languages
Complete fluency in English and French. Can speak and read Spanish and some Latin.
Professional Affiliations
Aldo Leopold Foundation, Board Member
Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. Graduate Member, Lambda Alpha Omega Chapter
American Public Health Association
American Historical Association
American Society for Environmental History
Programming Committee 2009
Blacks in Green (BIG), Board Member
Environmental Concerns Commissioner, Village of Winfield, IL, 1999-2003
Jack and Jill of America, Inc., West Suburban Chicago Chapter
National Association for Science Technology and Society,
Chair, Science, Technology and Public Policy Assembly, 1998-2000.
Chair, Membership Committee, 1999-2000.
Illinois Humanities Council, Steering Committee for the Oil and Water Program Series, 2006-Present
Illinois EPA, Environmental Justice Advisory Board
Illinois Public Health Association, Environmental Section
Society for the History of Technology, Environmental SIG
WeACT ((West Harlem Environmental Action, Inc.), Programming Committee for 2009 Climate Justice Conference
2008 UIC School of Public Health, MPH Epidemiology
Degree was undertaken for a NSF professional development grant, Engineering, Infrastructures and Environmental Justice. Coursework consisted of the following classes: Biostatistics, Epidemiology of Chronic Disease, Epidemiology of Infectious Disease, Genetics Epidemiology, Epidemiological Methods, SAS, GIS, and Qualitative Methods. CAPSTONE: History of Cancer Incidence in Dupage County and the Kerr McGee Superfund Sites.
Clayton College of Natural Health, Birmingham, Alabama.
2002. ND, Doctorate of Naturopathy (with Honors). Research emphasis on environmental health, environmental illnesses (asthma and multiple chemical sensitivity) and their relationship to industrial and scientific developments in the twentieth and twenty first centuries.
Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio.
2000 Ph.D, History of Science, Technology and the Environment. Dissertation, Packing Them In: A Twentieth Century Working Class Environmental History. A comparative history of early environmental activism in working class Eastern European communities in Chicago (1890-1930) and working class African American communities in Cleveland, Ohio (1920-1972) stemming from environmental and public health problems exacerbated by engineering systems and building infrastructures. Comprehensive exams: environmental history, history of science, history of technology and twentieth century American history.
1987 MS, Systems Engineering, Master Thesis: Optimal Load Management for the Space Stations Power System. A decision analysis mathematical model and computer simulation program using integer programming to examine the benefits and costs associated with managing a low earth orbit space power system.
Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio.
1980 AB., Pre-medicine and Communications.
Honors
Phi Alpha Theta
Epsilon Pi Tau
CWRU History Department, Doctoral Fellowship, 1995-2000
CWRU Systems Engineering Department, Society of Women Engineers Graduate Scholarship, 1984-1985
Oberlin College, Weinberger Scholarship, 1978-1980
Academic/Teaching Experience
Research Associate Professor: University of Illinois, Chicago, Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences Division, School of Public Health, 2006-Present
NSF Science and Society Scholar, University of Illinois at Chicago, 2006-2009
Editor in Chief, Environmental Justice Journal, Mary Ann Liebert Publishing, Co. 2007-Present
Adjunct Full Professor, History: University of Maryland online history professor. 2005-Present
Visiting Faculty:
DePaul University, 2003-2005
Adjunct professor: environmental ethics and the history of environmental justice in 20th century America.
Full Professor, Physical Sciences/Chemistry, Elgin Community College, Elgin, IL, 2000 - 2005.
I developed an integrated and experiential learning curriculum (history, science, ethics and technology) that placed a strong emphasis on the historical and contemporary interfaces of humans with science and technology.
Associate Professor, Physical Sciences/Chemistry, Elgin Community College, Elgin, IL, 1997– 2000
Assistant Professor Physical Sciences/Chemistry, Elgin Community College, Elgin, IL, 1994-1996
Corporate Experience
Jones Day Chicago, Illinois 2008-Present
Employed as an expert witness for Lewis vs LIA (Lead Industries of America) responsible for developing an interdisciplinary environmental health history of lead exposures to children in Illinois.
NASA Lewis Research Center, Cleveland, Ohio, 1986-1992.
Senior Environmental Systems Engineer: responsible for determining potential benefits and costs to the public associated with nuclear propulsion development utilizing risk assessment and decision analysis tools, 1990 - 1992.
Electrical Engineer: responsible for developing risk analysis and decision tools that could determine environmental impacts of fires above future shuttle missions, 1987-1990.
Power Systems Engineer, NASA consulting engineer (Sverdrup Technology) : responsible for developing mathematical models and decision software to determine impacts of technological designs, 1986 - 1987.
Cleveland Electric Illuminating Company, Cleveland, Ohio, 1980-1986
Environmental Instrumentation and Control Engineer responsible for designing and modifying engineering designs at fossil fueled fire plants to ensure that they were compliant with local, state and national environmental regulations (air, water and solid, hazardous, toxic wastes), 1983 -1986.
Plant Environmental Engineer, Lake Shore Plant, responsible for the day to day environmental compliance of the 250 MW fossil fuel fired plant in all environmental phases: air, water, toxic, hazardous, and solid wastes, 1982- 1983.
Corporate Environmental Chemist responsible for providing technical interpretation and implementation of the Resource, Conservation and Recovery Act and Toxic Substance Control Act for fossil fuel fired plants, 1980-1982.
Nonprofit Experience and Grants
2006-2009 National Science Foundation, Engineering, Infrastructures and Environmental Justice professional development grant. This grant awarded through NSFs Science and Society division (effective March 2006) supports the completion of a third monograph which examines the historical intersections of engineering and public infrastructures with disparities in environmental health and environmental justice claims in the Great Lakes region. The grant also supports the development of engineering and environmental ethics workshops at Northwestern University (Environmental Engineering Department).
2007-2009 Illinois Humanities Council Steering Committee Member: Running on Empty: Conversations on Oil and Water.
2004-2005 Illinois Humanities Environmental Scholar: “Urban Conservation Movement” and Mrs. Block Beautiful”: African American Women and Environmental Struggles in Chicago, 1920-1954. Both topics address the precursive struggles by African Americans and their interracial supporters against environmental inequalities in Chicago during the segregated era preceding Brown vs. Board decision in 1954.
2004-2005 Illinois Humanities Council/National Endowment for the Humanities
Project Director and grant writer. I received a $10,000 grant to develop an environmental health and ethics documentary sponsored by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Knights of Peter Claver and DePaul University.
2004-2005 Vincentian Endowment Fund
$3,000 grants to help develop an Environmental Justice and Health documentary in conjunction with the IHC/NEH and USCCB grants.
2003-2004 Illinois Humanities Environmental Scholar: “People and the Environment”
and “Arcadian Dreams”. Both topics address the interrelationships between people,
the natural environment and public health consequences.
2002-Present National Project Director Environmental Health/Justice: Appointed in 2003 as the national Project Director for the Knights of Peter Claver, Inc.s Environmental Justice and Health project. Participated in the initiation and developed a national environmental justice oral history and literacy program for the Knights of Peter Claver, Inc., the largest black Catholic lay organization in the world. I wrote a 5 year grant Environmental Health and Justice that was accepted for funding by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops Environmental Justice Office starting in November 2002.
Selected and Forthcoming Publications
Sylvia Hood Washington is the Editor in Chief of the Environmental Justice journal, Mary Ann Liebert Publishers, Inc. 2008- present.
Sylvia Hood Washington, Packing Them In: Archaeology of Environmental Racism in Chicago. Published (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield/Lexington Books, January 2005) in both paperback and hardback versions. This monograph examines the interrelationships of race, ethnicity, politics, zoning, planning, and sanitary engineering in the creation of inequitable geographies of environmental health.
“Mrs. Block Beautiful” chapter essay on the precursive environmental activism of Chicago Urban Leagues female volunteers and para-professionals to address public health problems in the African American community between 1915 and 1965, Environmental Justice, vol. 1, issue 1 2008.
Sylvia Hood Washington, Heather Goodall and Paul C. Rosier, Echoes from the Poisoned Well, Global Memories of Environmental Injustice (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield/Lexington Books, January 2006). Lead editor and contributor for an international co-edited collection (with Paul Rosier and Heather Goodall) that examines the impact of local and global environmental policies and engineering developments from the perspectives of indigenous and minority communities who felt they were subjected to environmental inequalities.
Sylvia Hood Washington, “The Color of Trees”: African American Struggles for A Sustainable Community in Cleveland, Ohio, 1917-1970 (Forthcoming, under contract consideration with Rutgers University Press. This monograph will examine the history of sanitary engineering systems in ex-urban communities and their roles in exacerbating and ameliorating environmental health disparities. It is to be published under a new environmental justice/health book series led by Dr. Washington.
Sylvia Hood Washington, The Urban Conservation Movement, Precursive African American Environmentalism, 1918-1968(Forthcoming, under contract with Ohio University Press, Urban Life and Urban Landscape series edited by Zane Miller).
Julie Sze and Sylvia Hood Washington, Environmental Justice textbook to be published by Routledge Press (2010).
Sylvia Hood Washington, “Environmental Justice Movement” in American Social Movements. ME Sharpe, Inc. Publications, 2004.
Sylvia Hood Washington, “Environmental Planning” in Encyclopedia of Community, Berkshire/Sage Publications, 2004.
Sylvia Hood Washington, “Technology and Environment” in the Encyclopedia of World Environmental History, Berkshire/Routledge Publications, 2004.
Sylvia Hood Washington, “Transportation and Environment” in the Encyclopedia of World Environmental History, Berkshire/Routledge Publications, 2004.
Sylvia Hood Washington, “Midwest Environmental History” in the Encyclopedia of World Environmental History, Berkshire/Routledge Publications, 2004.
Sylvia Hood Washington, “Ancient Western Africa Environmental History” in the Encyclopedia of World Environmental History, Berkshire/Routledge Publications, 2004.
Sylvia Hood Washington, “Space Exploration and Environment” in the Encyclopedia of World Environmental History, Berkshire/Routledge Publications, 2004.
Sylvia Hood Washington Faces of Environmental Racism, electronic book review published on H- Environment and H-Urban, November-December, 2002.
Sylvia Hood Washington, Garbage Wars, Struggles for Environmental Justice in Chicago, book review in April 2003, Environmental History Journal.
Sylvia E. Washington, “Gender, Technology and Environmental Policy” in the Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, Vol.19, No.5, October 1999, 365-371. Copyright Sage Publications.
Sylvia E. Washington, The Greening of a Nation? Environmentalism in the United States Since 1945 book review in the Bulletin of Science, Technology and Society, Sage Publications, Vol.19, No. 4, August 1999, 332-334.
Sylvia E. Washington, Environmental Politics: Domestic and Global Dimensions in the Bulletin of Science, book review in Technology and Society, Sage Publications April 1999.
Selected Presentations
2009
January 3, 2009 Invited Speaker for the Radical Historians Organization round table “Approaches to Radical Environmental History: Methodologies and Movements “
February 7, 2009
Invited Speaker for the Wild Things 2009: Conference at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Panel: Making conservation inclusive and affordable
February 27-28, 2009, Convener and presenter at the first Environmental Justice mini-conference (Tallahassee 2009) held at the ASEH Annual Conference
April 3, 2009
Invited Speaker for the Symposium and Celebration Honoring Aldo Leopold’s Graduation Centennial from the “Yale Forest School” for the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, New Haven, Connecticut
Panel: Leopoldian Philosophy and Ethics: In the Academy and, More Important, Beyond
2007
January 18, 2007 Invited Speaker: “Understanding Environmental Health Disparities via Spatial Temporal Analysis of Engineering Infrastructures in the Urban Environment” UIC Great Lakes Seminar
March 29, 2007 Selected Presenter. “Birth of a Sustainable Nation: EJ, NIEHS and the Rise of the Environmental Health Movement” Howard University, National Conference: The State of Environmental
Justice In America 2007 Conference
April 21, 2007 Selected Presenter: “Engineering, Infrastructures and Environmental Justice: NSF Research Findings” University of Chicago, _"Rethinking Health, Culture and Society: Physician-Scholars
in the Social Sciences and Medical Humanities"
2006
American Society for Environmental History Annual Meeting: Echoes from the Poisoned Well Roundtable on edited collection.
2005
April 22, 2005, Chicago Public Radio Earth Day Book Interview with Steve Edwards on the Eighty Forty Eight Show. Discussed the major points of my first monograph, Packing Them In, and its relevance to current environmental justice policies in Chicago and in the country.
May 6, 2005: Invited speaker for the 10th Annual National Religious Partnership for the Environment Conference.
September 12, 2005: Guest lecturer, Notre Dame University (South Bend, IN) for an Environmental Theology course. Lecture on environment, race, place and technology
November 5, 2005 Invited roundtable panelist on Ethnic Studies and the History of Technology, at the joint annual meeting for the History of Science and the Society for the History of Technology.
2004
Presider of 2004: OAH panel, “Oversight or Discrimination in American Immigration Law? Panel discussion on Disabilities and Immigration Policy, 1880s-1920s” co-sponsored by the Immigration and Ethnic Society.
Invited presenter for the Theology and Ecology Program Group’s “Reconciliation: The Challenge of Environmental Racism to Catholic Theology” at the 59th Annual Convention of The Catholic Theological Society of America, June 2004.
Invited presenter for the Illinois Public Health Futures Conference: “The Role of Faith Based Environmental Justice and Health Initiatives,” March 2004.
Invited presenter for Notre Dame Universitys “Faith, Ethics and Environment” conference, November 2004.
Invited presenter for 2004 Social Science History Association meeting: “Mrs. Block Beautiful,” African American Women and Environmental Activism in Chicago, 1917-1954.
Invited speaker/author for Chicago Public Library’s Annual Book Festival, October 2004. Presentation of forthcoming monograph, Packing Them In: Archaeology of Environmental Racism in Chicago, 1865-1954
Invited speaker, “Environmental Health and Environmental Justice” conference sponsored by Lehigh Universitys Environmental Sciences program and School of Public Health. October 20, 2004
Invited consulting scholar for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops conference, “The Person, The Poor and the Common Good: A Catholic Dialogue on the Environment”, St. Paul, MN, October 29-31, 2004.
Invited speaker for Notre Dame Universitys (Indiana) Faith, Ethics and Environment Conference, Nov. 9-11, 2004: Environmental Racism and The Role of Catholic Institutions.
2003
Invited participant in American Anthropological Associations Environmental Justice Conference, November 19-23, 2000, Chicago, Illinois
Invited Participant, Environmental Racism panel, Catholic Theological Society of America, Virginia, 2004
Broken Promises, Precursive Environmental Justice Struggles in Urban America, September, 2003, Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), Milwaukee, WI
“Broken Promises, The Urban Environment and Public Health Dilemmas of African American Migrants in Chicago, 1915-1950.” 2nd Annual Race and Place Conference, University of Alabama, March 5-7, 2003.
“Tainted Harvest, PCBs and the Public Health Problems of African Americans in Chicago’s Altgeld Gardens, 1969-2000.” American Society for Environmental History Annual Meeting, Brown University, Providence, RI March 26-29, 2003
“20 Years Later: Environmental Justice Movement” Co-panelist with Lois Gibbs (Love Canal) and Dr. Beverly Wright (Deep South Environmental Justice Center). American Society for Environmental History Annual Meeting, Brown University, Providence, RI March 26-29, 2003.
2002
“Race, Environment and Health.” Invited keynote speaker for the Knights of Peter Claver
and Ladies Auxiliary (largest black Catholic lay organization in the world) Northern District Regional meeting, Detroit, MI, April 11-13 2002.
Session organizer and commentator for the panel, Planning and Environmental Inequalities in the Urban Domain. American Society for Environmental History 2002, Denver, Colorado, April 2002.
African American History month, keynote speaker. Army Corps of Engineers, February 26, 2002 Mobile, AL. Speech focused on the relationship between environmental health and engineering designs; and their roles in the environmental justice phenomena
2001
Engineering Inequality; The Environmental Impacts of the Sanitary Ship Canal on Immigrant and Working Class Communities in the Early Urban Environment presented at the Newberry Librarys Technology and Culture Seminar, March 16, 2001
2000
The paper, “Legislating Environmental Health” presented at the American Society for Environmental History 2000 conference, Tacoma, Washington
1999
Panelist in the 1999 American Collegiate School of Planning roundtable, Learning from the Past: How Planning History Informs Contemporary Planning Practice. October 22, 1999, Palmer House Hotel, Chicago, Illinois.
“The Color of Trees, The African American Search for "Green Space” " presented at the 1999 Social Science History Association meeting
The paper “Reflections and Perceptions of African Americans in the Urban Environment” accepted for presentation at the 1999 American Society for Literature and the Environment meeting
“Packing Them In: Working Class Environmentalism in Chicagos Meat Packing Industry, 1915-1930” presented at the American Society Environmental History, Tucson, Arizona, April 1999.
“Gender, Technology and Environmental Policy” presented at the 14th Annual National Association of Science, Technology and Society Meeting, March 4-6, 1999, Baltimore, Maryland
Presided over the following panels at the 14th annual meeting of the National Association of Science, Technology and Society: “Ethical Considerations/Global Warming” and “Relating Science and Technology Education to the Humanities”, March 4-6, 1999, Baltimore, Maryland.
1998
“Perspectives of the Common Ground: Immigrant Response to the Urban Environment”. Presented at the October, 1998 Social Science History Association, Chicago, Illinois
“Utilization of History of Science/Technology in Honors Science Courses” Presenter and moderator at the College of Dupage Honors Faculty Workshop, April 17, 1998, Glen Ellyn, Illinois
“International History of Environmental Resource Utilization, Exploitation and Pollution” presented at the 5th Annual Internationalizing the Curriculum Conference, Midwest Institute, Kalamazoo, Michigan, April 2-4, 1998
“Persuasion or Propaganda, Communication Efforts by the ACS News Service” and “Perspectives of the Common Ground: A Social-Cultural Analysis of Earth Day 1970.” Papers presented at the 13th National STS Conference, March 5-7, 1998, Naperville, Illinois.
1997
Chair and discussant for ethno-politics panel, Illinois Political Science Association, October 25, 1997
Research Interests
My research interests are environmental epidemiology, biostatistics, surveillance, GIS to help understand the phenomena of environmental health disparities and their relationship to environmental pollution stemming from industrialization and urbanization. I am also interested in environmental literacy, health cognition and activism among African Americans, Africans, Latinos and ethnic immigrant populations and how these people respond to environmental degradation and environmental health problems in their communities as a function of their socio-economic status. I also have a strong interest and publication record in environmental ethics, philosophy and the history of environmental health disparities/justice.
Languages
Complete fluency in English and French. Can speak and read Spanish and some Latin.
Professional Affiliations
Aldo Leopold Foundation, Board Member
Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. Graduate Member, Lambda Alpha Omega Chapter
American Public Health Association
American Historical Association
American Society for Environmental History
Programming Committee 2009
Blacks in Green (BIG), Board Member
Environmental Concerns Commissioner, Village of Winfield, IL, 1999-2003
Jack and Jill of America, Inc., West Suburban Chicago Chapter
National Association for Science Technology and Society,
Chair, Science, Technology and Public Policy Assembly, 1998-2000.
Chair, Membership Committee, 1999-2000.
Illinois Humanities Council, Steering Committee for the Oil and Water Program Series, 2006-Present
Illinois EPA, Environmental Justice Advisory Board
Illinois Public Health Association, Environmental Section
Society for the History of Technology, Environmental SIG
WeACT ((West Harlem Environmental Action, Inc.), Programming Committee for 2009 Climate Justice Conference
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