Director
Fisk University Community Environmental Toxics Awareness and Sustainability Program

I am pleased to serve as the program director for the Fisk University Community Environmental Toxics Awareness and Sustainability Program. I have always had a passion for public health and safety. As a graduate student, I volunteered to be the lab safety manager in my research lab. I received my initial training in 2013 and annual refreshers for the rest of my tenure as a graduate student. I was responsible for ensuring that the workers in my lab were properly recognizing hazards in their experimental design. Additionally, I was often called upon to assist in evaluating the risk so that they can be minimized, and that the worker/students would be prepared to respond to any potential emergency that could arise because of their experiment. When workers are in a potentially dangerous environment, they need to be aware of the potential hazards and be prepared to response to emergencies. My role as a lab safety manager continued into my post-doctoral training and now in my independent career, I have the opportunity to go beyond the laboratory to bring awareness and training not only the student on the Fisk University campus, but also the surrounding community.

Since starting in 2012, I have been actively involved in the Fisk Environmental Toxics Awareness & Sustainability Program, which has been in existence for two decades and is an interactive community program designed to spread awareness about environmental and climate justice environmental health, sustainability, and worker safety. I along with my colleagues, Robert Wingfield, PhD, and Neena Lake, MPH, have administered a variety of awareness and safety training courses as well as emergency preparedness training to various communities and age groups within the Middle Tennessee area. I am fortunate to be at a prestigious institution such as Fisk University, and to be mentored by Dr. Wingfield, whose leadership has kept the program going for over two decades. As an African American scientist and educator, I am committed to building community resilience to the impact of environmental toxics and climate change on the health and safety of all in my community.