• Royce Fellowship
Christy Mo
Christy
Mo

Concentration 

Environmental Science

Award Year 

2020

Christy Mo is a member of the class of 2021 environmental science concentrator focusing on environmental health and interested in one day going into environmental medicine. My Royce project will look at how Covid-19 has affected environmental justice and environmental health in “Death Alley” of Southeast Louisiana, where I am from. This rural area of Louisiana located along the Mississippi River is lined with petrochemical companies and other industrial facilities that have historically released large amounts of pollution into the air, and thus is the subject of longstanding environmental health and justice controversies from frontline residents. With the advent of the Covid-19 pandemic, new research has surfaced in a time of social and political tumult suggesting that air pollution from the factories is causing abnormally high Covid death rates in the communities located most closely to the industrial facilities. I will spend this summer remotely researching how these rapid Coronavirus related changes have impacted environmental health and justice in the region, with the hope that the work I do will be useful for affected communities and other environmental stakeholders in Louisiana in the push to improve health and justice in my home state.