Please join Wayne State University's Center for Urban Responses to Environmental Stressors (CURES) for their upcoming hybrid seminar on February 15, 2024 at 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. ET. The seminar is free; registration is required. The Zoom link will be emailed to all registrants prior to Feb. 15. Those who wish to participate in person should meet at Wayne State's Integrative Biosciences Center located at 6135 Woodward Ave., First Floor Seminar Room. 

The guest speaker will be Dr. Jonathan London, professor and program director, UC Davis Department of Human Ecology/Community and Regional Development. Dr. London is also faculty director of the Community Engagement Core of UC Davis' Environmental Health Science Center. He will present, "Dilemmas and opportunities for justice-forward community-engaged environmental health research." 

Abstract: 

The field of community-engaged research has long addressed issues of social injustices, including those related to environmental health disparities. Environmental justice movements and policy leaders have drawn upon this research to inform their strategies. However, there are often gaps in the translation process from research to policy and advocacy that can reduce the community benefits of this research. This provokes a range of dilemmas and opportunities for innovative approaches to building equitable partnerships for community-based participatory action research. Dr. Jonathan London will provide examples of this CBPAR approach from his own environmental justice research and practice over the past 30 years as well as from his leadership in the Community Engagement Core of the UC Davis Environmental Health Science Center.  

Biography

Dr. Jonathan London is an educator, researcher, and community-builder with over 30 years of experience in participatory research, rural community development, and community engaged planning. He has degrees in environmental studies (Brown University), city and regional planning, and rural sociology (UC Berkeley).

His research and teaching addresses conflicts and collaboration in natural resource and environmental policy, with a particular emphasis on environmental justice. He has conducted action research on issues including from water justice to pesticide policy, sustainable community and regional planning, community air monitoring, and forest management. He also teaches a study abroad course on participatory rural development in Nepal. Jonathan was the founding director of the UC Davis Center for Regional Change and now co-directs the Community Engagement Core of the UC Davis Environmental Health Science Center  here he connects researchers and community leaders for collaborative research to understand and reduce health inequities.