What’s one common misconception about your area of research that you’d like to dispel? I think a lot of people might see environmental science research as pretty doomsday. But I think to flip that around is that we need to understand those issues in order for a solution to be identified. And that’s a call to action that in environmental health sciences there needs to be more emphasis on not only identifying the bad, but also talking about the solution.
What is your area of research or expertise that you bring to the Landscapes collaboration? I want to look at the health and well being of at-risk workers, marginalized workers. They are primarily low wage women, individuals of color, and immigrants. These people are the ones who are living in different communities that are putting them at this disadvantage, who are most likely to experience poor health conditions because of all those other systemic factors that come into play, including workplace factors.
What is your area of research or expertise that you bring to the Landscapes collaboration?
What I’m trying to bring into the Landscape group is to better understand the relationship between biomarkers of inflammation and accelerated aging and their relation to cognitive decline in people exposed to structural racism.
What’s one common misconception about your area of research that you’d like to dispel?
Not all epidemiologists study infectious diseases! I get asked a lot of questions about COVID-19. I don’t know anything about infectious diseases (from an epidemiological perspective), but I’ll happily talk to you about life course perspective and cumulative (dis)advantage!
What do you find challenging or exciting about interdisciplinary collaboration?
What I find most exciting is being allowed to study things I would not have had the creativity or knowledge to come up with on my own. Some interesting things I’ve looked at, including things like transcriptomics in sheep as a model organism or examining associations between segregation…
What is your area of research or expertise that you bring to the Landscapes collaboration?
I think a lot of people see critical geography and social studies of science as more theoretical or “ivory tower” facing research. But I’m really passionate about emphasizing the need for scholars and the public to understand the socio-political dimensions…