USSEE ’11 keynote and panel on environmental justice
The third day of the 2011 conference of the USSEE started with a morning keynote address and panel discussion on environmental justice. Dr. Devon Payne-Sturges, Assistant Center Director for Human Health at the U.S Environmental Protection Agency’s National Center for Environmental Research, kicked off the morning with a presentation entitled “A Long Way to Environmental and Health Equity: Science, Policy and Environmental Justice at U.S. EPA”. She is responsible for conducting strategic research planning and directing NCER’s approximately $20 million human health research program, and serves as primary NCER contact on human health research. Her areas of research include use of exposure biomonitoring for policy analysis, risk assessment, environmental health indicator development, children’s environmental health and environmental health of minority populations. Dr. Payne-Sturges was recently appointed to U.S. EPA’s Risk Assessment Forum and is serving on the Cumulative Risk Assessment Tech Panel and as chapter lead for Agency’s exposure assessment guidelines focusing on exposures of vulnerable and susceptible populations. She is also Co-Chair of Environmental Justice Technical Guidance workgroup on developing technical guidance on incorporating environmental justice concerns in Agency rule making activities, and is EPA’s representative on the interagency Federal Collaboration on Health Disparities Research (FCHDR) executive committee.
Following the keynote presentation, John Gowdy, current president of the International Society for Ecological Economics, moderated a panel discussion focused on the question: Are environmental justice programs in the United States poised to deliver environmental justice? Panelists included Bryce Feighner from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, and Bernardo Aguilar‐González of Fundación Neotrópica in Costa Rica.