Publications and presentations

Our project, Ecolectivos, was selected by Emory University's Science Gallery Atlanta for their upcoming exhibition, Resilient Earth. Curated from an unprecedented pool of 187 submissions, the exhibition will feature 11 exceptional proposals. The concepts are global in scope and represent a wide variety of perspectives on climate change and its impact on the future of […]

Waste collection services are uncommon in rural areas of low-resource countries, causing waste accumulation
and subsequent dumping and burning of garbage. Air pollution from household garbage burning, including
plastics, has been observed in Jalapa, Guatemala in addition to household air pollution (HAP) from cooking.
Adolescent girls often help with these cooking and household tasks, but little is known about their exposures.

Emory University brings together science, art, technology and design to provide world-class educational and cultural experiences. Equal parts engaging and interactive, these events and exhibitions are designed to inspire young people's passion for new ideas and areas of interest, equipping them with resilience, empathy and ethical understanding https://www.atlanta.sciencegallery.com/

This report has been prepared to address the plastic industry's claims that chemical recycling, also known as “advanced recycling,” can play a significant role in reducing global plastic pollution. The science and data currently available do not support this claim and actually point to the conclusion that chemical recycling would support expansion of plastic production, […]

Plastic wrappers and parcels that start off in Americans' recycling bins end up at illegal dumpsites and industrial furnaces—and inside the lungs of people in Muzaffarnagar.  

For nealy a year, I've been working on an NIEHS-funded project called ECOLECTIVOS, a portmanteau word combined from the Ancient Greek οἶκος “home” and from the Latin collectivus “collective.” As an anthropologist, it is always important to recognize the connection between culture and behavior. Our team is investigating how plastic waste combustion affects human health in Indigenous communities of Santa María Xalapán, a mountain in eastern Guatemala. The idea for this project sprang from a related study, the Household Air Pollution Intervention Network (HAPIN) Trial, which I worked on for several years. For that work, we studied how people adapt to using new cookstoves that run on liquefied petroleum gas instead of biomass, such as charcoal or wood.