On Friday, April 21st, Dr. Robert Bullard – often called the “Father of Environmental Justice” – delivered the 2017 Barry Commoner Lecture on the Environment to an enthusiastic crowd in the Theresa Lang Theatre.
Dr. Bullard’s lecture, titled “Building a Healthy, Sustainable and Environmentally Just Society for All: Why Equity Matters” traced the history of the environmental justice movement and connected the dots of health disparities, sustainability and environmental justice using a social justice and racial equity lens.
Dr. Bullard’s lecture followed a meeting with students in which he shared his experiences as an academic and activist fighting for environmental justice. He urged students to take up this fight and to find ways of delivering messages about climate change, public policy, and other urgent matters to the public. Students shared their perspectives and talked about their work both inside and outside of the classroom – including a contingent of MMC students who will participate in the People’s Climate March.
Dr. Bullard received his Ph.D. from Iowa State University. He is the author of eighteen books that address sustainable development, environmental racism, urban land use, industrial facility siting, community reinvestment, housing, transportation, climate justice, emergency response, smart growth, and regional equity. He has testified as an expert witness and served as a technical advisor on hundreds of civil rights lawsuits and public hearings over the past three decades. In 1990, he was the first environmental justice scholar to receive the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) Conservation Achievement Award in Science for Dumping in Dixie: Race, Class and Environmental Quality.
The Barry Commoner Lecture on the Environment was established at Marymount Manhattan College through the generosity of Richard S. Berry and Lucy A. Commoner. These gifts have also created The Commoner Fund for Environmental Studies at the College. Barry Commoner was a prominent environmental scientist, widely known as a writer and lecturer on the relationship between environmental and energy problems and public policy.
To learn more about the Barry Commoner Lecture on the Environment, please visit here.
Dunigan, a Research Supervisor of Integrated Genomics Operation at Memorial Sloan Kettering, spoke to a packed ‘Zoom room’ about her work developing coronavirus antibody tests.
