Len Albright
Assistant Professor of Sociology
Ph.D., University of Chicago
Phone: 617-373-6849
Office: 573 Holmes Hall
Email:l.albright@neu.edu
Download CV
Len Albright is an Assistant Professor of Sociology and a faculty member in the Urban Sustainability Initiative at Northeastern University. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, and was a recipient of the University’s Phoenix Fellowship from 2004-07. His dissertation was supported by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the MacArthur Foundation. A native of Mt. Laurel, New Jersey, Len maintains an interest in the history and impact of the Mt. Laurel Decisions, a series of NJ Supreme Court decisions that advocated for inclusionary zoning and housing equality. His dissertation is an ethnographic study of an affordable housing complex in a suburban New Jersey community. Trained as an environmental sociologist, Dr. Albright is also researching issues of community mobilization around hydraulic fracturing and natural gas extraction in Pennsylvania.
Phil Brown
Director of Social Science Environmental Health Research Institute
University Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Health Sciences
360 Huntington Avenue, 310INV
Boston, MA 02115
617 373-2022
Email: p.brown@neu.edu
Phil Brown is University Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Health Sciences, and Director of the Social Science Environmental Health Research Institute. From 1980 to 2012, he taught at Brown University, as Professor of Sociology and Environmental Studies. His recent books are Toxic Exposures: Contested Illnesses and the Environmental Health Movement and Contested Illnesses: Citizens, Science and Health Social Movements. He maintains connection with Brown University as an Adjunct Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine. At Brown, he served as co-director of the Contested Illnesses Research Group, director of the Community Engagement Core of Brown’s Superfund Research Program, and director of the Community Outreach and Translation Core of Brown’s Children’s Environmental Health Center.
Dr. Daniel Faber
Director of Northeastern Environmental Justice Research Collaborative
Professor of Sociology
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
509 Holmes Hall
Northeastern University
Boston, MA 02115
Email: d.faber@neu.edu
617-373-2878 (w)
Daniel Faber is Professor of Sociology at Northeastern University and
Director of the Northeastern Environmental Justice Research Collaborative
(NEJRC). His research is focused in the areas of political economy and
crisis theory, environmental sociology and policy, social movements,
classical and contemporary social theory, environmental justice,
philanthropy, Central America and underdevelopment, climate change, and
globalization. He co-founded and worked as Research Director for the
Environmental Project On Central America (EPOCA), Earth Island Institute
(1984-90), and has published numerous works on the political ecology of
Central America. He is also a co-founding editor of the international
journal Capitalism, Nature, Socialism, and a participating editor with Latin
American Perspectives. He is the author of Environment Under Fire:
Imperialism and the Ecological Crisis in Central America (Monthly Review
Press, 1993), recognized by Choice Magazine as an “1993 Outstanding Academic
Book of the Year on Latin America.” His most recent work is concerned with
problems of environmental injustice and equity in America, and includes the
edited collection, The Struggle for Ecological Democracy: Environmental
Justice Movements in the United States (Guilford Press, 1998) and
Capitalizing on Environmental Justice: The Polluter-Industrial Complex in
the Age of Globalization (Rowman & Littlefied, 2008), which was a finalist
for the prestigious C.W. Mills Award in 2009. Dr. Faber has produced a
number of major research reports relating to environmental justice,
including Green of Another Color, which assesses relations between the
foundation community and the U.S. environmental justice movement. Another
major study includes, Unequal Exposure to Ecological Hazards 2005:
Environmental Injustices in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as
the co-edited collection Foundations for Social Change: Critical
Perspectives on Philanthropy and Popular Movements (Rowman & Littlefied,
2005). Dr. Faber is a board member of the Alliance for a Healthy Tomorrow
(AHT), a coalition of scientists, health professionals, environmental
advocates, and labor unions working for a precautionary approach to
environmental policy in Massachusetts. In 2006, Dr. Faber received the
“Champion for Justice Award,” granted by the Alliance for a Healthy Tomorrow
(AHT), and the “Friend of the Earth and Environmental Justice Award” from
Salem State College and HealthLink for his “path-breaking leadership and
work in Environmental Justice in Massachusetts and beyond.” In 2010 he
received the Environmental Sociology Practice and Outreach Award from the
Environmental Sociology and Technology Section of the American Sociological
Association. He has also received recognition for the National Association
for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA), and many other organizations for his work in advancing a more
transformative environmental justice politics. He is currently working on a
new report on climate justice, ecological refugees, and equitable policy
approaches for dealing with global warming. Dr. Faber is also a co-founding
Board member of the Massachusetts Environmental Justice Alliance (MEJA).
Matt Judge
Research Assistant
Social Science Environmental Health Research Institute
Northeastern University
360 Huntington Avenue, 336INV
Boston, MA 02115
Email: jmjudge@neu.edu
617.373.7326
Matt Judge is a PhD student in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology. His dissertation “The Contaminated NICU: Nurse Activism, Contested Science, and the Control of Life” explores how nurses have been instrumental in the reform of the use of potentially harmful phthalated plastics in neo-natal intensive care units. He serves as a Research Assistant to Distinguished Professor Phil Brown. He has served as a Senior Teaching Assistant for the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, having instructed courses: SOCL1001 Introduction to Sociology, SOCL 1248 Environment and Society, and SOCL1268 Social Movements.
Max Liboiron
Postdoctoral Research Associate
Social Science Environmental Health Research Institute
Northeastern University
360 Huntington Avenue, 336INV
Boston, MA 02115
Email: maxliboiron@gmail.com
617.373.7326
Max Liboiron is a postdoctoral fellow at the Social Science Environmental Health Research Institute and a member of the Superstorm Research Lab. She is currently researching theories of scale in relation to environmental action. Her dissertation, Redefining Pollution: Plastics in the Wild, investigates scientific and advocate techniques used to define plastic pollution given that plastics are challenging centuries-old concepts of pollution as well as norms of pollution control, environmental advocacy, and concepts of contamination. Her work has been published in the Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies, Social Movement Studies: Journal of Social, Cultural and Political Protest, the Encyclopedia of Consumption and Waste: The Social Science of Garbage, and in the upcoming edited volume Accumulation: The Material Politics of Plastic (July 2013). She writes for the Discard Studies Blog and is a trash artist and activist.
Bindu Panikkarz
Postdoctoral Research Associate
Social Science Environmental Health Research Institute
Northeastern University
360 Huntington Avenue, 336INV
Boston, MA 02115
Email: b.panikkarz@neu.edu
617.373.7326
Bindu Panikkar is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in Environmental Health and Research Ethics at the Social Science Environmental Health Research Institute at the Northeastern University and a Research Affiliate at the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Science, Brown University where she co-ordinates the Community Outreach and Translation Core of the Brown Children’s Environmental Health Center and the Community Outreach Core of the Brown University Superfund Research Program. She also serves as the Program Director of Hospitals for a Healthy Environment in RI. Her current research work includes the ethical and legal challenges in communicating individual biomonitoring personal exposure results to study participants,’ the ‘ethical implications of fetal tissue research’ at the Brown Children’s Environmental Health Center and science technology and society perspective on ‘thorium based nuclear power and the dimensions of risk to society, environment, health and security. Her prior work and publications include an environmental justice and community based participatory work funded by the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health on occupational health disparities among immigrant populations in Somerville, MA; the ethics of uranium mining research; and the teratogenic effects of depleted uranium. Bindu has a Ph.D. in Environmental Health and MA/MS in Environmental Policy and Planning/Environmental Health from Tufts University.
Monica Ramirez-Andreotta, M.P.A., Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Research Associate
Social Science Environmental Health Research Institute
Northeastern University
360 Huntington Avenue, 336INV
Boston, MA 02115
m.ramirezandreotta@neu.edu
617.373.7326
Monica Ramirez-Andreotta has a PhD in Soil, Water and Environmental Science from the University of Arizona (UA) that focused on integrating the fundamentals of environmental science, human exposure assessment, and developing methods for environmental health justice. She also has a Masters of Public Administration in Environmental Science and Policy from Columbia University, and her undergraduate degrees are in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology and Photography. Her dissertation was entitled: “Designing a Comprehensive, Integrated Approach for Environmental Research Translation: The Gardenroots Project to Empower Communities Neighboring Contamination”, where she conducted a controlled greenhouse study in parallel with a co-created citizen science program to characterize the uptake of arsenic by homegrown vegetables near a Superfund site in Arizona. To complete her doctoral degree, Monica received a: SRP Training Fellowship, UA Diversity Fellowship, NASA Space Grant Graduate Fellowship, National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering Scholarship, and was a UA Water Sustainability Program Graduate Fellow. Recently, she was named the 14th recipient of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences’ Karen Wetterhahn Memorial Award.
She is the former Research Translation Coordinator for the UA Superfund Research Program, and has extensive experience transferring information and technology from researchers into the hands of stakeholders at all levels. Some of her activities include building linkages and partnerships with government agencies, creating innovative bilingual communication tools, and conducting informal science learning experiences for people of all ages. Additionally, she worked at the Flandrau Science Center and Center for Creative Photography. Recently, she was an Arizona Assurance Mentor, ensuring that in-state, first generation college students stay in school and succeed, a guest speaker for the Woman In Science and Engineering’s Expanding Your Horizons Conferences, and sat on the Pima County Department of Environmental Quality’s Advisory Council.
Ron Sandler
Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy
Director, Ethics Institute
Northeastern University
371 Holmes Hall
Boston, MA 02115-5000
Tel: (617) 373-3619
Fax: (617) 373-4359
r.sandler@neu.edu
Ronald Sandler is an associate professor of philosophy in the Department of Philosophy and Religion, a researcher in the Nanotechnology and Society Research Group, and a research associate in the Environmental Justice Research Collaborative at Northeastern University. His primary areas of research are environmental ethics, ethics and technology, ethical theory, and Spinoza.
Sandler has taught courses on subjects ranging from philosophy of religion to ethics after Darwin and from contemporary moral issues to history of philosophy. He has received Northeastern University’s Excellence in Teaching Award.
Laura Senier
Postdoctoral Research Associate
Social Science Environmental Health Research Institute
Northeastern University
senier@wisc.edu
Laura Senier holds a joint appointment as Assistant Professor in Sociology and Anthropology and in Health Sciences. She holds an MPH in epidemiology from the BU School of Public Health and a PhD in Sociology from Brown University. Her research interests include the sociology of medicine and public health, community environmental health, and environmental justice. Her dissertation was funded by a fellowship from the Robert & Patricia Switzer Foundation. Her current research focuses on barriers in research translation, or the migration of basic discoveries to clinical and public health applications. She is currently exploring this problem in an NIH-funded grant to study how state health agencies are modernizing their genetics programs.
Sara Shostak
Department of Sociology
Brandeis University, MS 071
Waltham, MA 02454-9110
Phone: 781-736-2213
Fax: 781-736-2653
Email: sshostak@brandeis.edu
Christine Vatovec
Christine Vatovec is a postdoctoral research associate in the College of Medicine at the University of Vermont. She holds a Master’s degree in Conservation Biology from the University of Minnesota, and a PhD in Environment & Resources from the University of Wisconsin. Her teaching and research interests focus on sustainability science, ecological health, and environmental sociology. She draws on theories and tools from these subdisciplines, but also from anthropology, ecological systems theory, environmental justice, environmental and medical history, environmental psychology, environmental studies, and public health sciences. Christine’s research examines connections between human health and well-being and the natural and built environment. Her ultimate career goal is to broaden our societal understanding of “health” and “well-being” in a way that helps us move from a society seeking cures to one that focuses on prevention by recognizing that human flourishing is deeply connected to the resilience and flourishing of our ecological community.
Sara Wylie
Assistant Professor of Sociology and Health Sciences
Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Phone: 617-373-2385
Office: 338 International Village
Email: s.wylie@neu.edu
Download CV
Sara Wylie is a Senior Research Scientist in Northeastern University’s new Social Science Environmental Health Research Institute. She teaches Science and Technology Studies (STS) in Sociology and Health Sciences and received her Ph.D. from MIT’s History, Anthropology, Science, Technology and Society (HASTS) Program in 2011. Her dissertation “Corporate Bodies and Chemical Bonds: An STS Analysis of the American Natural Gas Industry” is an ethnographic study of the role science based NGOs played in the emergence of public concerns about the human and environmental health impacts of chemicals used in natural gas extraction, particularly hydraulic fracturing. Investigating new methods for practicing STS research, her dissertation additionally developed and implemented web-based tools to help communities and experts across the country study and hold extractive industries accountable for their social and environmental impacts. This project (called ExtrAct) was developed in collaboration with artist and technologist Chris Csikszentmihalyi, in MIT’s Center for Civic Media. More generally, Sara seeks to develop new modes of studying and intervening in large-scale social issues such endocrine disrupting chemicals and corporate accountability through a fusion of social scientific, scientific and art/design practices. Pursuing these interests Sara taught in Digital+Media at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) for three years before moving to Northeastern. She has worked extensively with Theo Colborn, lead author of “Our Stolen Future.” Sara is also a cofounder of Public Laboratory for Open Technology and Science, a non-profit that develops open source, Do It Yourself tools for community based environmental analysis. Expanding her interest in transforming science practice through STS research, as Public Lab’s Director of Toxics and Health research she organized and initiated open source research projects on low cost thermal imaging, detection of indoor air hazards, community based methods for detection of hydrogen sulfide and home-testing for environmental estrogens. Through her new role helping to build Northeastern’s Social Science Environmental Health Research Institute she continues to work actively with Public Lab as a consultant and community organizer.
