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February 16, 2021 - 12:00pm
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John Wargo, Yale School of the Environment

Tweedy-Ordway Professor of Environmental Health and Political Science

Professor Wargo’s research explores threats to human health posed by environmental hazards, including exposures to pesticides, vehicle emissions, toxins in foods, plastics, flame-retardants, metals, and chemicals released outdoors and indoors.  Current research examines environmental and health challenges associated with the global food system. He authored Green Intelligence winning the Independent Publishers Gold Medal in Environment, Ecology and Nature; Scientific American Favorite Science Book of 2010; and the Connecticut Book Award for Non-Fiction. Our Children’s Toxic Legacy, published by Yale Press won the American Publishers’ Association Prize as the best Book in Political Science. He has testified before U.S. Senate and House Committees recommending legal strategies to protect children from environmental hazards, and has been an advisor to the Senate Committee on Health, the Vice President’s office, several EPA administrators, and the Secretary of Agriculture. He has been a member of EPA’s Scientific Advisory Panel/Board on Pesticides, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s scientific panels, advisor to the U.N.’s World Health Organization, and Food and Agriculture Organization on malaria control, food safety, and pesticide control standards.  His analyses were the basis of two National Academy of Sciences Press books on chemical hazards in food. His course, Environmental Politics and Law and its 24 lecturers are freely accessible in video and translated into 50 languages on the website Open Yale, translated into 50 languages. He chairs the Yale College Environmental Studies Major, and has chaired Yale College’s Curriculum Committee. He received his PhD from Yale. He helped guide faculty searches and curriculum development at Yale-NUS College in Singapore.  

Nancy Blackwood, Red Bank Environmental Commission/Green Team

Chair

Nancy was born in New York and grew up on the island of Jamaica. She was invited to participate in the Red Bank Environmental Commission shortly after she moved to town; she was installing solar on her home’s roof which seemed like a good indicator that she would be interested in joining the group. Nancy was a senior systems analyst for Verizon, AT&T. She is the household program manager and network administrator. She has a BA in Economics from Hunter College. Nancy lives with her two children, her gardening-expert husband Phil who is also an enterprise architect for AT&T, and their dog Scout. Her home is nearly fossil-free, with solar panels and an electric car. Nancy concluded, “My focus is sustainability and I try to live with preservation of our resources in mind, because the Earth will survive the future, but we cannot say the same thing for humanity if we do not make major changes. I hope to inspire others and enact projects that get Red Bank moving in the right direction.

Kristen Wilson, Office of Grants Management, City of Kingston

Director

Kristen Wilson is the Director of Grants Management for the City of Kingston. She seeks and manages funds for a range of city projects in the areas of transportation, water infrastructure, environment, housing, community development, and public health.  Many of her management activities are focused on several grant-funded transportation projects on the Kingston Greenline, a network of rail trails, complete streets, and linear parks in Kingston.  Previously, Kristen worked as a Senior Resource Educator at Cornell Cooperative Extension of Ulster County.  In that role, she directed several public health projects and guided the Live Well Kingston Coalition, now a City Commission, into existence.  She also developed Complete Streets advocacy networks in Kingston and Ulster County. Kristen has a Masters from the Bard Center for Environmental Policy, for which she conducted research on watershed policy in Oaxaca, Mexico. Earlier, she worked as an environmental educator and Outward Bound instructor. She is fluent in Spanish, and she enjoys living in Kingston, NY with her husband and 8-year old daughter.