About SSEHRI

The Social Science Environmental Health Research Institute works on the following areas:

Creating Collaborations between Life Scientists and Social Scientists

  • SSEHRI serves as a center for transdisciplinary environmental health research, writing new research proposals, producing publications, and preparing young scholars for careers in social science-environmental health science collaborations. Central to improving environmental health is the development of basic sciences able to capably build connections between sociology, anthropology, exposure science, epidemiology, toxicology, and science & technology studies.
  • SSEHRI runs Training Programs to prepare graduate students and postdocs for transdisciplinary environmental health careers. From 2012-2016, we conducted the NSF-funded “Research Training Program – New Directions in Environmental Ethics: Emerging Contaminants, Emerging Technologies, and Beyond.”  Starting in 2015, we run the NIEHS-funded T-32 Training Program, ““Transdisciplinary Training at the Intersection of Environmental Health and Social Science,” in coordination with Silent Spring Institute.  Also starting in 2015 we include undergraduate trainees from the NIEHS-funded “Research Opportunities for Undergraduates: Training in Environmental Health Sciences” (ROUTES).
  • SSEHRI’s extensive research program includes funding from NIEHS, NSF, NHGRI, EPA, and the JPB Environmental Fellows Program. Research areas include biomonitoring and household exposure, chemical policy, brownfield redevelopment, community monitoring at fracking sites, and climate change impacts of health. We are part of the Puerto Rico Testsite to Explore Contamination Threats (PROTECT)/Superfund Research Program and the Center for Research on Early Childhood Exposure and Development in Puerto Rico (CRECE)/Children’s Environmental Health Center.
  • Graduate students are in Sociology PhD, MPH, and Population Health PhD programs.

Integrating Comprehensive Doctoral training in Environmental Sociology with the Sociology and Anthropology Department

  • The above training activities work together with one of the nation’s largest environmental sociology faculties.
  • In addition to director Phil Brown, SSEHRI core faculty are Sara Wylie, Laura Senier, and Sharon Harlan.  All are jointly appointed in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology and the Department of Health Sciences. In addition to environmental health, there is strength in environmental justice, community-based monitoring, energy and natural resources, environmental social movements, and urban sustainability issues.

Networking Environmental Health Communities with Faculty and Students for Research and Internships

Expanding Biomonitoring and Air/dust Monitoring, Including Innovative Methods of Reporting Data to Participants

  • This continues long-standing collaboration with Silent Spring Institute in Newton, MA and University of California-Berkeley, along with more recent colleagues from Harvard School of Public Health and eight collaborating biomonitoring studies.

Developing, Applying, and Studying the Use of Low-cost Tools for Community-based Environmental Monitoring

  • Coordinate with Public Laboratory for Open Technology and Science, a Cambridge-based organization with collaborators and projects across the US and the world. Public Lab works with environmentally-impacted communities to conduct balloon mapping, remote sensing, spectral imaging, robotic indoor air and dust collection, and other low-cost, participatory projects.

Serving as a Campus-wide Resource for Environmental Health

  • Present environmental ethics, cultural competence, and community-based participatory research training sessions through the Northeast Ethics Education Partnership for Research Ethics (NEEP), presently based at Brown University, Northeastern, and SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (Syracuse)
  • Host speakers and hold conferences to integrate environmental health interests across campus