Box 1916

Maxcy Hall

112 George Street

Providence, RI 02912

Telephone: (401) 863-2367

Sociology@brown.edu

 

201 Maxcy Hall
201 Urban Environmental Lab (alternate office location)
401-863-2633 phone
401-863-3213 fax
Phil_Brown@brown.edu

Fall 2011 Office Hours:
Monday 11:00 - 12:00
Wednesday 11:00 - 12:00

Ph.D. Brandeis University

Brown University Research Profile Page

Curriculum Vitae

Areas of Interest:
Environmental Sociology, Medical Sociology, Environmental Justice, Environmental Health

My research includes disputes over environmental causation of illness, social policy on flame retardants and other emerging contaminants, biomonitoring and household exposure, ethical issues in reporting data to research participants, community response to toxic waste-induced disease, social movements in health, and the Jewish experience in the Catskill Mountains resort area. My books include “No Safe Place:  Toxic Waste, Leukemia, and Community Action,” “Illness and the Environment: A Reader in Contested Medicine,” “Catskill Culture: A Mountain Rat's Memories of the Great Jewish Resort Area,” “In the Catskills: A Century of the Jewish Experience in ‘The Mountains,’" “Social Movements in Health.” “Toxic Exposures: Contested Illnesses and the Environmental Health Movement,” and the fourth edition of “Perspectives in Medical Sociology. In 2011, University of California Press will publish my “Contested Illnesses: Citizens, Science and Health Social Movements.”

My past projects include labor-environment coalitions, and the intersection of breast cancer advocacy and environmental justice. I lead the Contested Illnesses Research Group, A 12-year old research group composed of postdoctoral fellows, graduate students, and occasionally undergraduates. I direct the Community Engagement Core of Brown’s Superfund Research Program and I direct the Community Outreach and Translation Core of Brown’s Children’s Environmental Health Center.

I have a joint appointment in Environmental Studies, which offers BA, ScB, and MA degrees. I am also affiliated with the Committee on Science and Technology Studies, which offers an undergraduate concentration.

In recent years I have taught the following undergraduate courses: Environmental Sociology: An Environmental Justice Approach, Contested Environmental Diseases, and a first-year seminar on Environment and Society; and the following graduate seminars: Social Movements in Health, Health Institutions and Providers, Qualitative Methods and Field Work.