Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash.

As the Engaging the World: Leading the Conversation on Environmental Justice series comes to a close, Wilkinson College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences would like to continue the conversation. We invite you to explore the Engaging the World six-part podcast series which offers more in-depth dialogue on environmental justice with the experts who participated in the fall program.

Leading the Conversation on Environmental Justice is a series of informed, sustained, and enriching dialogues looking at how environmental toxicity and risk disproportionately impact populations based on race, ethnicity, nationality, and social standing. Environmental Justice brings awareness to these disparities, fighting to ensure that every voice is heard, every challenge is addressed, and every community has a seat at the table for a greener future.

Through education, art, and storytelling, we can all learn to be allies and engage the world achieving fair and equitable distribution of environmental benefits and burdens associated with economic production.

This podcast series was produced in partnership with publicpodcasting.org, a public podcast service and distributor of educational media that seeks to amplify the voices of community leaders by providing a platform to share stories about civic engagement and cultural enrichment. Subscribe now! Listen on Apple Podcast and Spotify!

Patricia Jovel Flores and Kayla Asato
Patricia Jovel Flores is Orange County Environmental Justice’s new Project Director, and is excited to lead the organization in confronting the many environmental issues disproportionately affecting Orange County’s marginalized communities.
Kayla Asato is OCEJ’s Redistricting Organizer as of April 2021. She grew up in Honolulu, Hawaii learning about the effects of pollution, climate change, and environmental racism from war, so moving to Orange County to see similar racial injustices in our soil, water, and air really sparked that passion in making sure justice comes.

Dr. Robert D. Bullard
Dr. Robert D. Bullard is often described as the father of environmental justice. He is the former Dean of the Barbara Jordan-Mickey Leland School of Public Affairs at Texas Southern University 2011-2016. Professor Bullard currently is Distinguished Professor of Urban Planning and Environmental Policy and Director of the Bullard Center for Environmental and Climate Justice.

Karen Hampton
Karen Hampton: “As an artist of color, I have made a lifelong commitment to creating artwork that responds to the lives of my ancestors.  My lens is anthropology and I study my own genealogy. I travel in my ancestors footsteps, I walk the roads where they lived, explored the plantations where they were enslaved, I am the storyteller.

Dr. Richelle Tanner
Dr. Richelle Tanner is an Assistant Professor in the Environmental Science and Policy Program, jointly appointed to the Schmid and Wilkinson Colleges. She is broadly interested in how climate change affects both ecological and human communities, and our mechanisms of resilience.

Dr. Jason A. Douglas
Dr. Jason A. Douglas is an assistant professor of public health in the Department of Health Sciences within Crean College of Health and Behavioral Sciences. Leveraging community-based participatory research frameworks, Douglas works with community-based organizations and residents in underserved Black and Latinx communities to investigate social and environmental determinants of public health disparities.

Dr. William M. Tsutsui
Dr. William M. Tsutsui is an award-winning historian and teacher, frequent public speaker and media commentator, and a seasoned academic administrator with a record of innovation. He researches how Godzilla films reflect environmental anxieties in the post-Hiroshima era. Born in New York City and raised in Texas, he holds degrees from Harvard (A.B. 1985), Oxford (M.Litt. 1988), and Princeton (M.A. 1990, Ph.D. 1995) universities.

Want to hear more? Check out the Engaging the World: Leading the Conversation on the Significance of Race podcasts series!