Dr. Sylvia Hood Washington is Chief Environmental Research Scientist at Environmental Health Research Associates, LLC. She is an environmental epidemiologist, environmental engineer and environmental historian with 30 years of research experience working on the impact of industrial pollution on human health and ecosystems using qualitative and quantitative analyses. Dr. Washington successfully implemented Research Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, Superfund and National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) regulations for effluents and solid waste derived from power generation sources (space and terrestrial systems) for both industry and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Dr. Washington was recently trained as a Climate Reality Leader with an interest in communicating climate change to environmental justice communities in the Great Lakes region. She is a published author and the creator and editor-in-chief of the first international environmental health disparities journal, Environmental Justice. She formed her own environmental health research-consulting firm, Environmental Health Research Associates (E3HRA), LLC. Dr. Washington consults regularly with environmental law firms as well as grassroots community groups to help them understand the history of industrial operations, transportation systems and the impact of municipal planning on human health and environmental health disparities.

In November 2010 she was elected Co-Chair of the Illinois EPA’s Environmental Justice Advisory Board. The Board is comprised of leaders from Environmental Justice groups, private industry, non-governmental organizations, law firms and municipal officials in Illinois. In 2012 she was appointed by Governor Patrick Quinn to sit on the first Environmental Justice Commission for the state of Illinois.

Area of expertise and research activities: Environmental epidemiology of pollutant exposures: lead, PCBs, greenhouse gases, thorium, lead, mercury, NOx, SOx , radon and asbestos.

Speech Topics

Environmental Racism/Environmental Justice
Public health and environmental health disparities.
Climate Change and Climate Justice
Eugenics and Racial Disparities of Abortion in the African American Community
Science, Technology and Environmental Genomics
Laudato Si and its Implication for All Life