History

Dr. Caren Cooper (she/her) advocates for participatory science practices, including public science, citizen science, and community science. She pursues scholarly inquiry and develops public science programs that focus volunteer interests on the generation of large-scale data to study and visualize the interactions between social and ecological systems.

Dr. Monica Ramirez-Andreotta (she/her) is an associate professor of Soil, Water, and Environmental Science (SWES) with a joint appointment in the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health’s Division of Community, Environment, and Policy at the University of Arizona. The overall goal of Dr. Ramirez-Andreotta’s research program is to build citizen science programs and low-cost environmental monitoring tools to increase public participation in environmental health research.

Dr. Valerie Ann Johnson is the former Dean of Arts, Sciences, and Humanities and Professor of Sociology at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina. She is the Co-Director of Infrastructure and Development at the North Carolina Environmental Justice Network. Her research is conducted in Costa Rica, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, the Seychelles Islands, and the US, centers on gender, bioethics, disability, the health of women and girls, and environmental justice.

Jan-Michael Archer (He/Him/His) Is a PhD candidate at the Maryland Institute for Applied Environmental Health. He uses community science to educate and empower Black residents who are overburdened by air pollution and other environmental injustices.

Deja Perkins is a Ph.D. student in Geospatial Analytics at North Carolina State University, owner of Naturally Wild LLC, and co-founder of #BlackBirdersWeek. Through Naturally Wild LLC she engages people in the southeastern and midwestern US in bird watching, community monitoring, and environmental education. Her work with #BlackBirdersWeek helps to engage international audiences in centering the experiences of Black birdwatchers in birding.  Through her research, she examines the spatial patterns of data gaps in large-scale participatory projects, and how to better engage people who live within data gaps communities.

Dr. Chris Lamont Brown (they/them) is an environmental scientist who specializes in making science available to all. Currently, Dr. Lamont Brown serves as the Co-Director of Research and Education at the North Carolina Environmental Justice Network. Since receiving their Ph.D. in zoology at NC State in 2015, they’ve been learning grassroots organizing skills to apply to the field of public science with the vision of science that supports accessible and liberated futures.

Hasibe Caballero-Gomez (she/her) is a grad student at UCLA, where she investigates the disproportionate health impacts of pollutants and the built environment in marginalized communities. Outside of her academic interests, Hasibe is invested in environmental justice, building community capacity, and urban gardens.

Lila Higgins is a museum educator with over 20 years of experience in the field. They are passionate about connecting people to nature and working towards anti-racist citizen/community science. They are a co-founder of the City Nature Challenge, a global bioblitz event that engages people in 100s of cities around the world.

Dr. Dani Lin-Hunter (she/her) is a postdoctoral researcher at NC State University studying citizen and community science projects. She is interested in public engagement in science and increasing inclusion in science.

Dr. Na’Taki Osborne Jelks is a nationally-recognized leader in engaging urban communities and youth of color in environmental stewardship through hands-on watershed and land restoration initiatives, environmental education, and training.

Dr. Graise D. Lee Jenni (she/they/hers) works to bring equity focused systemic organizational change to the conservation landscape as a partner and co-founder of Resolve Conservation. www.resolveconservation.com.

Dr. Zakiya Leggett is a professor, and serves as the campus director for the Doris Duke Conservation Scholars (DDCS) Program and program director for the Scholars for Conservation Leadership Program and National Needs Fellowship program.

Dr. Rhonda Moore, Ph.D., is a medical anthropologist and Program Director at the US NIH. Her work focuses on social drivers, digital mental health, responsible data science, AI ethics,  ethics of digital mental health technologies in low-resource settings and low and middle-income countries (LMICs), and climate change and mental health equity. 

Sebastian Moreno (he/him) Is an Environmental Conservation PhD Candidate at the University of Massachusetts – Amherst.  His research areas are in avian and urban ecology, and human dimensions of wildlife.

Miguel Ordeñana, who joined the Natural History Museum of LA County in April 2013, is an environmental educator and wildlife biologist. As a community science manager, Miguel promotes and creates community science projects, and recruits and trains participants.

Dr. Rajul (Raj)  Pandya (he/him) directs AGU’s Thriving Earth Exchange. The Thriving Earth Exchange helps volunteer scientists and community leaders work together to use science, especially Earth and space science, to advance community priorities related to sustainability, resilience, disaster risk reduction, and environmental justice.

Dr. Nirav Patel is a trained natural and social scientist with a Ph.D. from Cornell University and has expertise in the dynamics of Coupled Natural and Human Systems (CNH). His research encompasses teaching as research in its emphasis on experiential learning on the Food-Energy-Water nexus in the Anthropocene as a universal point of introduction to the interdisciplinary nature of planetary and global health.