Public Talk
Protecting Communities and Cultural
Groups in Environmental Research
Dr. Dianne Quigley
Adjunct Assistant Professor of Research
Center for Environmental Studies, Brown University
Noon – 1:00 pm, Friday, February 11, 2011
408 Baker Laboratory
SUNY-ESF, Syracuse
Research in the environmental sciences, engineering, and related fields often involves
working with community members through partnerships and consultation arrangements.
Many environmental projects take place in communities with diverse cultural groups.
Developing research ethics protections with communities and culturally-diverse groups
needs more attention in research ethics training. Individual human subject protections
need to be extended to groups who may share place-based harms or disease histories/
experiences. Protecting human subjects includes respecting individuals as members of
place-based communities. Cultural groups and local communities in the United States
and internationally have particular histories and traditions, group processes and
research experiences that are important to learn about. New research ethics texts and
reports offer valuable preparation for meeting today's complex research requirements.
This talk will review new research protections for place-based communities and cultural
groups and introduce the new Northeast Ethics Education Partnership between SUNYESF and Brown University, including a faculty mentoring program with web-based
resources and in-person training opportunities. Interested faculty are invited to attend
this talk to learn how to take advantage of these resources and offer ways to bring their
expertise and field experiences to this training effort.
Dianne Quigley is Adjunct Assistant Professor at Brown University’s Center for Environmental Studies,
and lecturer at UMass-Dartmouth. She was principal investigator of a National Institute on Health grant
entitled, “Collaborative Initiative for Research Ethics in Environmental Health” (2000-2007) and now is the
principal investigator of the NSF-funded, Northeast Ethics Education Partnership (2010-2013). For
several decades, she developed and implemented community-based, environmental justice projects with
Native American and other communities across the US dealing with the health effects of nuclear
contamination. Dr. Quigley holds a Ph.D. in Religion from Syracuse University; and a Master’s degree
from Clark University's Environment, Science and Policy Program.
For further information, please contact David Sonnenfeld at <dsonn@esf.edu>, tel. 315.470.4931