Sean Stratton, a fourth year PhD student at the Rutgers School of Public Health, has received the Inaugural Rutgers Graduate Student Community Engagement Award from the Rutgers School of Graduate Studies.
Stratton is working with Shereyl Snider at the East Trenton Collaborative (ETC) to help address lead exposure concerns within the East Trenton neighborhood of Trenton, New Jersey. With Snider and ETC, Stratton designed a community based participatory research project where they hired local residents to collect soil samples that were measured for lead across the neighborhood. The team has completed the soil sampling phase and is now preparing to go inside homes to identify other lead exposure sources such as paint, dust, and water. The team plans to provide strategies to each resident on how they can reduce their potential lead exposure, based on their individual home results.
“It’s nice to be recognized for the work that I’m doing, however, none of this would be possible without my community partners, especially Shereyl Snider,” says Stratton, who is doctoral student within the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health and Justice. “Without Shereyl’s passion for bettering her community, this project would not exist. I hope more researchers will intertwine community engagement/community driven research with their research projects.”
Stratton plans to continue working with communities to promote environmental health and reduce environmental exposures.
Learn more on the Rutgers School of Graduate Studies website.
