On Tuesday the Heinz Family Foundation named University of Maryland School of Public Health Professor Sacoby M. Wilson, Ph.D., one of two recipients of the prestigious 30th Heinz Award for the Environment. As part of the accolade, he will receive an unrestricted cash award of $250,000.
“Sacoby is honored for his scholar activism, his commitment to addressing the burden of environmental, climate and energy injustices on vulnerable populations, and his deep concern for humanity,” said Teresa Heinz, Chairman of the Heinz Family Foundation. “A tireless and passionate advocate for those suffering from the physical, social and mental impacts of pollution and toxic exposures, he is deploying his expertise as a public health scientist to create a future in which everyone has equal access to clean air, water and land.”
Wilson is a nationally recognized environmental health scientist and environmental justice advocate whose work combines scholarship, science and community engagement to confront practices and policies that harm people in frontline and fenceline communities — neighborhoods located near polluting facilities. He has spent his career investigating how industrial practices, pollution and climate change disproportionately affect the health of people of color and residents of low-income neighborhoods. He also continuously works to “INpower” communities to achieve justice.
A tireless and passionate advocate for those suffering from the physical, social and mental impacts of pollution and toxic exposures, [Dr. Sacoby Wilson] is deploying his expertise as a public health scientist to create a future in which everyone has equal access to clean air, water and land.
Wilson is a professor in the Department of Global, Environmental and Occupational Health, where he founded and directs The Health, Environmental and Economic Justice (T.H.E. EJ) Lab.
“For generations, people of color and low-income communities have been marginalized and invisibilized, their neighborhoods used as dumping grounds for industrial hazards and pollution,” said Wilson. “These toxic exposures can harm people across their life course, and climate change will make these conditions and health inequities worse. Many communities distrust well-funded academic institutions, having endured decades of broken promises from researchers who fail to understand their lived experience. My work deploys science of the people, for the people and by the people. It is built on trust, respect, transparency and open communication and uplifts the principle of representative justice. It’s about applied, action-oriented science for justice and social change.”
Created to honor the memory of the late U.S. Senator John Heinz, the Heinz Awards celebrate excellence and achievement in areas of great importance to Senator Heinz. Recipients of the 30th Heinz Awards will be honored in October in Pittsburgh. Find more information on Wilson and other awardees at www.heinzawards.org.
Editor’s note: Content has been adapted from the Heinz Foundation news release.