June 2019 – Education, Sociology, & Environmental Justice – Stephanie Malin, PhD

Featuring Stephanie Malin, PhD,
Associate Professor, Colorado State University

Stephanie Malin, Ph.D., Associate Professor at Colorado State University is an educator, sociologist, and environmental advocate.  In each of her roles, she brings her research, teaching, and advocacy skills to be on environmental concerns of today while preparing the next generation of advocates. 

Dr. Malin specializes in environmental and natural resource sociology, governance, and rural development.  She conducts community-based and mixed methods research focusing on the community impacts of resource extraction, energy production, and environmental de-regulation. Her main interests include environmental justice, environmental health, social mobilization, and the socio-environmental effects of market-based economies. 

As an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at Colorado State University, Dr. Malin is an award-winning teacher of undergraduate courses on environmental justice, water and society, and environmental sociology and a graduate course in Environmental and Natural Resource Sociology. 

In addition, Dr. Malin is also the author of The Price of Nuclear Power: Uranium Communities and Environmental Justice (published by Rutgers University Press, May 2015) and has published her research in journals such as Social Forces, Environmental Politics, the Journal of Rural Studies, and Society and Natural Resources.  Her book explores how under-addressed legacies of uranium development intersect with current efforts to renew uranium production. 

Dr. Malin’s current field work includes multi-year and multi-sited ethnographic research interrogating the community, environmental justice, and environmental health outcomes of unconventional oil and gas production (including the notorious hydraulic fracturing stage).  She also co-leads a Water Center Research Team project examining environmental justice issues among various water users in the Rio Grande Basin.  She has on-going projects examining just transitions, uranium development, and the intersections between water, agriculture, and energy development. Dr. Malin is also part of an interdisciplinary team that recently received National Science Foundation funding to initiate a multi-year graduate training program focused on Food-Energy-Water nexus issues in the semi-arid West.

Dr. Malin’s work is supported by grants through the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (part of National Institutes of Health), the Rural Sociological Society’s Early Career Award, and the CSU Water Center’s Faculty Fellowship & Research Team grant.  

Besides her teaching and research roles, Dr. Malin has enjoyed serving in elected leadership positions for the American Sociological Association’s Section on Environmental Sociology and the International Association for Society and Natural Resources. She completed a Mellon Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship at Brown University in 2013, after earning her Ph.D. in Sociology from Utah State University in 2011.

Through her range of experiences, Stephanie Malin has interrelated the fields of education, sociology and the environment to consider how to promote justice for a more sustainable world.

May 2019 – Environmental Justice For All – Michael Wenstrom

Featuring Michael Wenstrom, Environmental Justice Program, 
Environmental Protection Agency

Environmental justice is not a concept most people consider for their career or for their purpose.  But Michael Wenstrom is not like most people.  His purpose has been to bring effective policy and practices to address environmental concerns. 

Michael has been working in the arena of public policy for more than thirty years.  For the past eighteen years, he has worked in the Environmental Protection Agency’s Region 8 Environmental Justice Program.  

Michael’s work has been focused on a range of environmental concerns in many areas of the United States.  He assisted EPA Enforcement staff to negotiate Supplemental Environmental Projects (SEPs) which direct money to communities to remedy past environmental ills.  He is also working with the people of Pueblo in the state of Colorado and the US Army to give the community a greater voice in the destruction of 780,000 rounds of chemical weapons.  He is also working with local partners to address environmental health issues in Salt Lake City to improve children’s health.  He also is working with community members in assessing risks from industrial facilities located near residential areas.

Michael also piloted work in EJ communities to reduce the threat of radon and partnered with the State of Colorado to retrofit school buses in school districts serving low income communities. Michael also assists the EPA Urban Waters Program in applying environmental justice principles in the remediation of America’s urban waterways.

Recently, Michael spent a year working with EPA Headquarters staff and the EPA Region 5 Environmental Justice program to develop strategies to more fully engage the residents of Flint, Michigan in coping with the city-wide water crisis.  Flint is considerable among the most egregious of environmental concerns with high concentrations of lead throughout the city’s water systems, resulting in many health concerns for community members.

Throughout his work and career, Michael’s dedication to pursuing environmental protections especially for vulnerable communities has helped to ensure environmental justice for all.