Lois Ann Polashenski

Lois Ann Polashenski is an environmental science doctoral student at the University of Arizona. She was born and raised in a small coal mining town in northeastern Pennsylvania. Lois came from a low-income household but was fortunate to attend Cedar Crest College in Allentown, Pennsylvania and receive a Bachelor of Science degree in Environmental Conservation. From her experience living in a heavily polluted area, along with her upbringing connected with nature, she became interested in how environmental factors affect public health. She acknowledges her disadvantages, while also recognizing her privileges in the space of academic research.  Using her lived experiences and intersectionality, while also acknowledging the experiences of others, she hopes to garner a better understanding of the struggles faced by underserved communities and provide better access and understanding of pollution.

Gardenroots: Cottonwood, the Heart of the Verde Valley, AZ

Cottonwood, AZ is home to historic copper smelting and the remains of these operations have left a copper slag pile in the town center. The slag does not sit idly, it is being repurposed and sold for use in artificial turf, construction materials, and as blast abrasives. Members of the community have raised concerns about the potential exposure to fugitive dust generated by these operations. Gardenroots, a community science program, aims to evaluate environmental quality and exposures near locations of current or historic resource extraction. Using a participatory design, community members are involved in most of the research process and the Cottonwood, Arizona iteration hopes to inform potential environmental exposures to copper slag in dust, air and soil, which community members have identified as key areas of concern. Through this work, we hope to build capacity, provide prevention/intervention and mitigation strategies, and strengthen community trust in science.