Jan 12, 2021 | Events

SMEA Environmental Justice Speakers Series

Please join us via Zoom on Thursday, March 11, 12:00-1:00pm PST when Dr. C.N.E. Corbin will be presenting “In Red, Black, and Green: The Political Ecological Eras of Oakland, California 1937-2020.” This will be the last presentation for Winter Quarter 2021 in the SMEA Environmental Justice Speakers Series.

Dr. Corbin will share her work in examining Urban Environmental Policy and Practice and its intersection with Environmental Justice. She earned her PhD in Environmental Science, Policy, and Management and her undergraduate degrees in African American Studies and Media Studies from UC Berkeley. She currently serves as an Assistant Professor at the Nohad A. Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning at Portland State University.

Her research interests include: Urban Environmental Policy and Practice, Urban Political Ecology, City Planning, Environmental Justice, Gentrification, Green Cities, Public Parks, Media/Science Fiction

We’d love you to join us Thursday, February 25, 12:00-1:00pm PST via Zoom for our 4th speaker in SMEA’s Environmental Justice Speakers Series.

We welcome Dr. Melanie Malone to offer “Seeking Justice, Eating Toxins: Overlooked Contaminants in Urban Community Gardens”.

Dr. Malone is an Assistant Professor in the School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences at the University of Washington Bothell campus. She earned her Ph.D in Earth, Environment and Society from Portland State University and a Master’s degree in Soil Science from Oregon State University.

Some of her current research projects revolve around soil analysis for community gardens in the Seattle area and in Brooklyn, NY. The work analyzes the soil for endocrine disrupting and carcinogenic contaminants. She also uses surveying and interviewing to understand general practices in and between gardens to explore the following topics: concentration levels of contaminants in organic community gardens; social and physical practices contributing to or mitigating contaminants in community gardens; sources of community garden contaminants; whether environmental justice mandates affect garden practices; federal policies affecting garden contaminant concentrations.

Additionally she is engaged in the assessment of homeless populations’ exposure to potentially harmful contaminants in contaminated homeless rest areas in two U.S. cities.

To RSVP for the event, please contact Leah Quinn (leahq@uw.edu).

Please join us via Zoom on Thursday, February 18, 12:00-1:00pm PST when Usha Varanasi will be presenting Casting a Wide Net and Making the Most of the Catch a retrospective on her career in science and administration and the intersection with diversity, inclusion and environmental justice.

In 2010 Dr. Varanasi retired as the science and research director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Northwest Fisheries Science Center, a position she held from 1994, when she became the first woman to lead a fisheries field office. With more than 35 years of service in NOAA, she has dedicated much of her science career to applying chemistry to critical biological questions. As the science director, she used multidisciplinary approaches, unusual alliances and risk-taking during environmental and ecological crises. She helped develop robust scientific underpinning for improving regulatory, management, and public policy decisions regarding Living Marine Resources of the Pacific Northwest under NOAA Fisheries jurisdiction.

She will describe lessons learned and principles that influenced her five decade-long professional endeavors from graduate schools to ascending, often unexpectedly, the science and management ladder in a federal agency managing living marine resources of the USA.

To RSVP for the event, please contact Leah Quinn (leahq@uw.edu).

We continue the SMEA Environmental Justice Speakers Series with Michael Bogan!

Join us as he presents “Santa cruz: the life, the death, and (effluent) rebirth of a desert river”.

Coming to you via Zoom on Thursday, February 11, 12-1pm PST.

To RSVP for the event, please contact Leah Quinn (leahq@uw.edu).

This quarter’s SMEA Environmental Justice Speakers Series will begin on Thursday, January 21st from 12:00pm to 1:00pm via Zoom.

Michael Jacobson first went to Taiwan in 1986, returned in 1994-5, and in 2018 spent 3 months living in Taiwan’s indigenous communities. For 30 years he pursued and finally rescued two Tao (Yami) fishing boats called tatala from a restaurant in Seattle and went to Orchid Island to learn about contemporary Tao culture. Michael works for the King County (WA) Office of Performance, Strategy and Budget and is national award-winning expert in organizational performance management and a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration. He has Master’s degrees from UW’s SMEA (then SMA) and the Jackson School of International Studies.

Jacobson will be presenting Indigenous Taiwan: Traditional Knowledge Navigating Modernity

Making up less than two percent of Taiwan’s total population, Taiwan’s 16 recognized indigenous tribes daily navigate the pressures of modernity while maintaining their traditional cultures and traditions. Contemporary indigenous people must make a living in a global economy, maintain their language and culture within a dominant Han Chinese culture, fight for land rights and sovereignty, and deal with the negative impacts of mass tourism and environmental degradation. Despite these challenges, many communities retain strong cultural practices tied to their traditional knowledge, customs, and beliefs. In addition, indigenous pride and self-determination has blossomed in the last 20 years with even Taiwan’s president, Tsai Ing-wen, proudly noting her Paiwan heritage. This talk will focus on the Tao (Yami) tribe, who lives on Orchid Island, and which is also the storage site for Taiwan’s low level radioactive waste.

To RSVP for the event, please contact Leah Quinn (leahq@uw.edu).

Suggested readings from the presenter:

Backstory on How I Rescued the Tatalas

https://www.knkx.org/post/almost-30-years-making-seattle-man-gets-ahold-two-boats-taiwan (8 min radio article)

Indigenous Taiwan Overview

https://www.cip.gov.tw/portal/index.html?lang=en_US (for general familiarization)

“What you should know about being Indigenous in Taiwan” https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4017174

Taiwan Indigenous Treatment and Presidential Politics

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/08/01/488250700/taiwanese-president-issues-countrys-first-apology-to-indigenous-people (news article)

https://indigenous-justice.president.gov.tw/EN

Orchid Island Flying Fish Season

https://globalvoices.org/2012/06/01/taiwan-flying-fish-season-on-orchid-island/ (including some short videos)