Sacoby Wilson
In this country, too many communities of color experience violence, oppression, and toxic trauma due to environmental racism and slavery. We use anti-racist, pro-liberation science to INpower communities who are seeking environmental justice.
About
Dr. Sacoby Wilson is a professor with the Department of Global Environmental and Occupational Health in the School of Public Health at University of Maryland-College Park (UMD) where he directs The Health, Environmental and Economic Justice (T.H.E. EJ) Lab. He has over 25 years of experience as an environmental health scientist in the areas of exposure science, environmental justice, environmental health disparities, community-engaged research, air quality, environmental justice screening and mapping, climate change, sustainability, industrial animal production, and community resiliency. He works primarily in partnership with community-based organizations to study and address environmental justice and health issues and translate research into action.
Dr. Wilson works to build environmental justice organizations and coalitions. He is the Founder and Director of the Center for Engagement, Environmental Justice and Health INpowering Communities (CEEJH INC), a frontline EJ nonprofit organization. He is also Co-Founder of the Mid-Atlantic Justice Coalition and the DMV Environmental Justice Coalition, and is Founder of 17 for Peace and Justice. He is faculty advisor for a student chapter of 17 for Peace and Justice at UMD. He is on the steering committee for the National Black Environmental Justice Network (NBEJN). He directs the Mid-Atlantic Climate Action Hub (MATCH) funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, co-directs the US EPA Region III Thriving Communities Technical Assistance Center (TCTAC), is academic co-director of the community engagement core at the Johns Hopkins University CHARMED Center, and helps to manage the Mid-Atlantic Environmental Justice Fund. He has worked on environmental justice issues including environmental racism with community-based organizations (CBOs) 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.
Dr. Wilson has been very active professionally to advance environmental justice science, advocacy, and policy. He is Editor-in-Chief, Environmental Justice, a member of Kresge Foundation’s Climate Change and Health Equity program advisory board, and is on the external advisory board for REACH climate center at George Washington University. He was a member of the US EPA’s National Environmental Justice Advisory Council (NEJAC) and founding co-chair of its Justice40 and Finances workgroup. He has served on the US EPA’s Science Advisory Board, the Fifth National Climate Assessment (Air Quality Team), the National Academy of Science’s Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology (BEST), the Commission on Environmental Justice and Sustainable Communities for the state of Maryland, and the Climate and Environment subcommittee for Governor Wes Moore’s Transition Team. Additionally, he was a board member of the Citizen Science Association and Community Campus Partnerships for Health, a Chair of APHA’s Environment Section, a member of Board of Scientific Counselors for the CDC NCEH/ATSDR, and Chair of the Alpha Goes Green Initiative, Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. He is also a senior fellow in the Environmental Leadership Program (ELP).
Dr. Wilson has received many awards for his contributions and achievements as an environmental justice researcher, scholar, and advocate. He won the 30th Heinz Award for the Environment in 2025, the 2022 Sierra Club Robert Bullard Environmental Justice Award, the 2021 Maryland LCV Changemakers Award, the 2018 Taking Nature Black Environmental Champion Award, and the 2015 APHA Environment Section Damu Smith Environmental Justice Award. 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 given to Low Country Alliance for Model Communities, North Charleston, SC and Mitigation Agreement Committee. Furthermore, 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, earning an MS in 2000 and a PhD in 2005.
Dr. Wilson has been happily married to Natasha Blakeney for 20 years. He has two wonderful children, Ariana and Ava, who are both aspiring artists. In his free time, Dr. Wilson is an avid gardener, managing a mini-farm at his house. He likes to make applesauce, blackberry jam, fig jam, gooseberry jam, elderberry syrup, grape jelly, muscadine drinks and other items from his homegrown fruits and vegetables.
