Environmental Engineering & Toxicology

New research shows that the extreme weather and fires of recent years, similar to the flooding that has struck Louisiana and the Midwest, may be making Americans sick in ways researchers are only beginning to understand. By knocking chemicals loose from soil, homes, industrial-waste sites or other sources, and spreading them into the air, water and ground, disasters like these — often intensified by climate change — appear to be exposing people to an array of physical ailments including respiratory disease and cancer. ...

Fellow Colleen Callahan is deputy director of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation, which conducts research and advises civic partners on the design and implementation of policies, plans and programs with a focus on advancing environmental sustainability. Part of Callahan’s job is to make sure the center’s findings get into the hands of the right decision makers.

Fellow Sherry Login, the manager of electric vehicles for Consolidated Edison (Con Edison) in New York, manages all customer-facing electric vehicle (EV) programs for the company. Her special project, however, is SmartCharge New York, an off-peak charging incentive program that she created two years ago.

As the policy manager for autonomous vehicle policy at AAA Northern California, Nevada and Utah, Fellow Xantha Bruso is developing and implementing AAA’s AV policy strategy to advance AV safety while enabling innovation. She also supports strategic initiatives to accelerate AV deployment and foster mobility solutions.

Fellow Holmes Hummel is the Founding Director of Clean Energy Works, a nonprofit organization that seeks to accelerate private capital utility investments in inclusive clean energy solutions.

Editor's note: The video attached to this story was produced by Organic for All.

Humans have not yet released a genetically engineered plant that is intended to spread and persist in an unmanaged environment. Biotech trees – genetically engineered or gene-edited – offer the possibility of releasing genetically engineered trees into forests to counter threats to forest health and represent a new frontier in biotechnology, writes Fellow Jason Delborne.

Fellow Kimberley Miner has published a new article in Nature. A screening-level approach to quantifying risk from glacial release of organochlorine pollutants in the Alaskan Arctic Abstract