Dr. Marcella R Thompson (Community Engagement Core Co-Leader) was awarded funding from RI-INBRE for a pilot project entitled, Tools for Tribal Environmental Health Literacy and Community-Driven Discussions. This project is the next step in the multi-faceted multi-year SRP research study, The Namaus (All Things Fish) Project. Namaus means fish in the Narragansett Tribal language.

 “The purpose of this pilot project is to develop new tools for intergenerational environmental health literacy workshops and community-driven forums that will connect the Narragansett Tribe’s cultural ways of knowing with scientific research results about the environmental contamination of fish and shellfish in two tribal ponds located on their Charlestown, RI reservation,” said Thompson. Over the last five years, Thompson has been assisting the Narragansett Tribe to assess the extent and impacts of environmental contamination.

 “It is time to take all these research results and bring it back to the Tribe’s leadership and its members,” Thompson said. “For me, this is the most exciting part. This is where research becomes most meaningful. I am a firm believer that research shouldn’t sit on an academic’s bookshelf or be quarantined in a laboratory. Research finds solutions to address real world problems.”