Invitation to Research Town Hall

Featuring the Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and Center for Urban Responses to Environmental Stressors (IEHS/CURES)

February 14, 2024 - 1 to 2:00 p.m.

Via Zoom

Dr. Ezemenari Obasi, vice president for research at Wayne State University, is pleased to invite the campus community to join him for the next in a series of research town halls to provide the research community with updates and information about the resources available on campus, as well as to connect our faculty with potential collaborative opportunities, particularly in our research centers and institutes and research core technology labs and facilities. 

On February 14^th, Dr. Melissa Runge-Morris, director of the Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and Center for Urban Responses to Environmental Stressors, along with Dr. Carol Miller, professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and director of Healthy Urban Waters at Wayne State University, will discuss Wayne State’s IEHS/CURES.

Chartered since 1987, the Institute of Environmental Health Sciences/Center for Urban Responses to Environmental Stressors is home to the NIEHS-funded Center for Urban Responses to Environmental Stressors P30 environmental health sciences core center, the NIEHS-funded “Center for Leadership in Environmental Awareness and Research (CLEAR)” Superfund Research Program, and the Wayne State University One Health Initiative.

Faced with an aging urban infrastructure and a built environment contaminated with legacy and emerging environmental pollutants, the Detroit community faces the consequences of environmental health disparities and injustice on a daily basis. Among 100 of America’s cities with the greatest number of births, Detroit has the highest reported preterm birth rate of 14.5% (March of Dimes, 2023). The etiologic factors that play central roles in this public health emergency are currently unknown. However, evidence suggests that exposure to volatile, very volatile, and semi-volatile organic compounds during vulnerable life windows of susceptibility is an important determinant of maternal-fetal health, with implications for preterm birth and other adverse birth outcomes. This is the focus of the CLEAR Superfund Research Program. Drs. Runge-Morris and Miller will discuss transdisciplinary team-science approaches as a means to recognize and provide smart solutions to complex environmental health and engineering challenges in the post-industrial age.

We hope you will join us for this important town hall.