Event Details
When:
Thu, May 1, 2025, 11am - 12pm
Location:
Online: Zoom
Price:
Free
Brought to you by:
Institute of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, The Foundation for WWU & Alumni
Description
Check out this video to watch the Building the Worlds that Kill Us.
Across American history, the question of whose lives are long and healthy and whose lives are short and sick has always been shaped by the social and economic order. From the dispossession of Indigenous people and the horrors of slavery to infectious diseases spreading in overcrowded tenements and the vast environmental contamination caused by industrialization, and through climate change and pandemics in the twenty-first century, those in power have left others behind.
Through the lens of death and disease, Building the Worlds That Kill Us provides a new way of understanding the history of the United States from the colonial era to the present. David Rosner and Gerald Markowitz demonstrate that the changing rates and kinds of illnesses reflect physical, social, political, and economic structures and inequalities of race, class, and gender. These deep inequities determine the disparate health experiences of rich and poor, Black and white, men and women, immigrant and native-born, boss and worker, Indigenous and settler. This book underscores that powerful people and institutions have always seen some lives as more valuable than others, and it emphasizes how those who have been most affected by living and environmental conditions lead to the disparities in rates of disease and death that challenge us today. Ultimately, this history shows that unequal outcomes in how and where we live are a choice—and we can instead collectively make decisions that foster life and health.
Featuring:
Prior to joining the Columbia faculty in 1998, Dr. Rosner was University Distinguished Professor of History at the City University of New York. In 2010, he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences' National Academy of Medicine. In addition to numerous grants, he has been a Guggenheim Fellow, a recipient of a Robert Wood Johnson Investigator Award, a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow and a Josiah Macy Fellow. He has been awarded the Distinguished Scholar's Prize from the City University and the Viseltear Prize for Outstanding Work in the History of Public Health from the APHA, and Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Massachusetts Department of Public Health, among others. Dr. Rosner has also been honored by the New York Committee on Occupational Safety and Health and, with Gerald Markowitz, was awarded the Rachel Carson Award and the Upton Sinclair Memorial Lectureship ""For Outstanding Occupational Health, Safety, and Environmental Journalism by the American Industrial Hygiene Association."" Dr. Rosner is an author of eleven books on occupational disease, epidemics and public health. Lead Wars: The Politics of Science and the Fate of America's Children, (University of California Press/Milbank Fund, 2013) details the recent conflicts at Johns Hopkins over studies of children placed in homes with low level lead exposure and what it says about public health research. His forthcoming work, also with Gerald Markowitz, is Building the Worlds that Kill Us (Columbia University Press, 2022).
Click here to learn more about David.
Ruth Sofield is a Professor of environmental toxicology and chemistry in the College of the Environment. She received her PhD and MS in Environmental Science and Engineering at the Colorado School of Mines. Ruth's research group focuses on the effects of water and air pollution. Their current projects include the aquatic toxicity of microplastic and tire wear particles, and the use of moss as a biomonitoring tool for particulate matter. Ruth is a member of the Puget Sound Partnership Science Panel and the President of the Pacific Northwest Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry.
Tracy Collier received his PhD in Fisheries Sciences from the University of Washington. He has worked for over 45 years as a toxicologist, with more than 35 of those years spent at NOAA's Northwest Fisheries Science Center, where he served as the director of a science division that employed up to 100 people, covering several disciplines, including environmental toxicology, analytical chemistry, harmful algal blooms, and watershed processes. He has over 175 scientific publications, and currently is an affiliate faculty at Western.
Ian Moran is a newly appointed Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences at Western Washington University. He conducted his PhD research at Oregon State University leveraging passive chemical samplers and embryonic zebrafish to investigate the occurrence, movement and toxicity of chemical mixtures at contaminated sites in Oregon and Alaska. As an alumnus of the College of the Environment Ian is excited to be back on campus to teach toxicology courses this year!
Questions and Accommodations
- Your point of contact for this event is The Foundation for WWU & Alumni. Call (360) 650-3353 or email Alumni@wwu.edu.
- Advance notice for disability accommodations and special needs is appreciated. Please mention your needs when registering.
- There will be auto-captions for the Zoom webinar.
The views expressed by our speakers do not necessarily reflect those of Western Washington University.