Contested Illnesses Research Group
Brown University , Providence RI

Alison Cohen graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, with honors, from Brown University in Community Health and Education Policy in 2009. Her work brings her to the nexus of environment, health, and education on the policy level, on which she has published an article in New Solutions examining school siting and school building policy. Alison’s research interests include community-based, policy-relevant environmental epidemiology and evaluation of public health and civics curricula. She has worked with the Brown University Superfund Research Program’s Community Outreach Core since fall 2007, and did her undergraduate honors thesis work with Communities for a Better Environment in Richmond, CA.

Alison was recognized as a 2008 Udall Scholar for environmental public service leadership, a 2008 Harold Ward UTRA grant recipient for excellent research at Brown in environmental studies, and a member of USA Today 2009 All-USA College Academic Team for her work developing place-based, standards-aligned environmental health justice curricula for Rhode Island middle school students with the Brown University Superfund Research Program’s Community Outreach Core. She presented the results of their evaluation at the 2009 National Environmental Health Association conference. She was also a 2007 recipient of Brown’s Swearer Center for Public Service Royce fellowship to communicate environmental health justice in the realms of community health and education in San Francisco, with the Natural Resources Defense Council and Summerbridge San Francisco.

The winner of Brown University’s Jin Prize for academic achievement and commitment to public service and a recipient of the Joslin Award for broad and deep involvement in student life and learning at Brown, Alison was also a member of College Leadership Rhode Island’s Class of 2009.

Alison is a 2009-2010 Fulbright scholar to the European Union evaluating the implementation of the EU’s recently adopted chemicals policy, REACH. She is also a member of the Education and Communication workgroup of the CDC/ATSDR’s National Conversation on Public Health and Chemical Exposures. Beginning in fall 2010, Alison will be pursuing a Masters of Public Health in epidemiology and biostatistics at University of California, Berkeley, on a University Fellowship.