Dr. Sacoby Wilson, PhD, Founder & Director
Dr. Sacoby Wilson is the Founder and Director of the Center for Engagement, Environmental Justice and Health INpowering Communities (CEEJH, INC). He is a multi-talented professional with expansive roles and responsibilities. Dr. Wilson is a nationally renowned thought leader and scientist in the environmental justice sphere with experience spanning more than 25 years in the areas of exposure science, environmental justice, environmental health disparities, community-engaged research, including community-based participatory research (CBPR), community science, and community-owned and managed research (COMR), and air quality studies including building hyperlocal air quality monitoring networks, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) including developing environmental justice screening and mapping (EJSM) tools, built environment, climate change, industrial animal production, climate change, community resiliency, and sustainability.
He is also a professor with the Department of Global Environmental and Occupational Health (GEOH) (formerly known as the Maryland Institute for Applied Environmental Health), School of Public Health, University of Maryland-College Park. He works primarily with community-based organizations to study and address environmental justice and health issues and translate research into action. He has been and continues to mentor students for more than 20 years.
Additionally, Dr. Wilson heads the Mid-Atlantic Climate Action Hub (MATCH), funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Waverly Street Foundation; co-directs the US EPA Region III Thriving Communities Technical Assistance Center (TCTAC), and leads the Mid-Atlantic Environmental Justice Fund, the region’s first large scale participatory fund for assisting frontline and fenceline communities experiencing environmental and climate justice issues. CEEJH is focused on providing technical assistance and research support to communities fighting against environmental injustice and environmental health disparities in the DMV region and nationwide through inpowerment and liberation science. Through CEEJH, Dr. Wilson is engaging communities in the Washington, DC region and beyond on environmental health issues, including exposure and health risks for individuals who fish and recreate on the Anacostia River; use of best management practices to reduce stormwater inputs in the Chesapeake Bay; air pollution and health impacts due to industrial and commuter traffic in Bladensburg, MD; built environment, environmental injustice, and vectors in West Baltimore; cumulative impacts of environmental hazards on air quality in Brandywine, MD; goods movement, industrial pollution, and environmental injustice in South Baltimore, MD; environmental justice and health issues in Buzzard Point area of Washington, DC; industrial chicken farming on Maryland's Eastern Shore; health impact of assessment in the Sheriff Road community; and other topics. In addition, he is working with schools in the region on pipeline development efforts in the STEM+H disciplines (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, and Health).
He has worked on environmental justice issues, including environmental racism, with community-based organizations through community-university environmental health and justice partnerships in South Carolina and North Carolina, including the Low-Country Alliance for Model Communities (LAMC), in North Charleston, South Carolina; the West End Revitalization Association (WERA) in Mebane, NC; and the Graniteville Community Coalition (GCC) in Graniteville, SC. He has provided technical assistance to REACH in Duplin County, NC; RENA in Orange County, NC; and the NC Environmental Justice Network. He also has worked on environmental justice and air pollution issues with community-based groups in Houston, Texas; Savannah, GA; Uniontown, AL; Newark, NJ; and Wilmington, DE.
Dr. Wilson has been very active professionally in advancing environmental justice science, advocacy, and policy. He is on the US EPA’s Science Advisory Board, the Fifth National Climate Assessment (Air Quality Team), a National Academy of Science's Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology (BEST) member, and the Editor-in-Chief of Environmental Justice. He is a member of the Commission on Environmental Justice and Sustainable Communities for the state of Maryland and a former member of the Climate and Environment subcommittee for Governor Wes Moore’s Transition Team. In addition, he is a former member of the US EPA's National Environmental Justice Advisory Council (NEJAC), including founding co-chair of its Justice40 and Finances workgroup, a SAB liaison member of NEJAC’s cumulative impacts workgroup, a member of the Kresge Foundation’s Climate Change and Health Equity (CCHE) program advisory board, a former board member of the Citizen Science Association and Community-Campus Partnerships for Health, a past Chair of the APHA Environment Section, a former member of Board of Scientific Counselors for the CDC NCEH/ATSDR, and former Chair of the Alpha Goes Green Initiative, Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. He is also a senior fellow in the Environmental Leadership Program.
Dr. Wilson has done much work to build environmental justice organizations and coalitions. He is a Co-Founder of the Mid-Atlantic Justice Coalition (MAJC), the DMV Environmental Justice Coalition, and Founder of 17 for Peace and Justice, an environmental justice advocacy organization. He is the faculty advisor for a student chapter of 17 for Peace and Justice on the University of Maryland-College Park campus. He is on the steering committee for the recently relaunched National Black Environmental Justice Network (NBEJN). Additionally, he hosts an annual environmental justice symposium that brings together community members, advocates, policymakers, researchers, students, and practitioners to discuss ways to address environmental justice issues in the DMV region and around the country.
Dr. Wilson has received many awards for his contributions and achievements as an environmental justice researcher and advocate. He recently won the 2022 Sierra Club Robert Bullard Environmental Justice Award. He has also received the 2021 Maryland LCV Changemakers Award and the 2018 Taking Nature Black Environmental Champion Award. He also received the APHA Environment Section Damu Smith Environmental Justice Award 2015. From the University of Maryland School of Public Health, he received the George F. Kramer Practitioner of the Year Award (2014-2015) and the Muriel R. Sloan Communitarian Award (2019-2020, 2012-2013). He also received the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Social Justice Award from the University of South Carolina in 2011. He received a US EPA Environmental Justice Achievement Award from the Low Country Alliance for Model Communities, North Charleston, SC, and the Mitigation Agreement Committee. Additionally, Dr. Wilson received the Steve Wing International Environmental Justice Award in 2008.
Dr. Wilson, a two-time EPA STAR fellow, EPA MAI fellow, Udall Scholar, NASA Space Scholar, and Thurgood Marshall Scholar, received his BS degree in Biology/Ecotoxicology with a minor in Environmental Science from Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University in 1998. He received training in environmental health in the Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Wilson received his MS degree in 2000 from UNC-Chapel Hill and his PhD from UNC-Chapel Hill in 2005.