Title: The 2005 James P. Keogh Memorial Scholarship Fund Award Recipients
Author:
Section/SPIG: Occupational Health and Safety
Issue Date:
Karen B. Mulloy, Co-Chairperson
Andrea Kidd Taylor, Co-Chairperson
OHS Scholarship Committee
The OHS Section of APHA established the James P. Keogh Memorial Scholarship Fund in 1999 to promote and strengthen the participation of students and union representatives and members in the OHS Section of APHA. The Fund recognizes the need for the involvement of workers and new health and safety professionals in order to make our workplaces and communities healthy and safe. The scholarship fund was established to honor the enormous contribution James (Jim) Keogh made to health and safety not only through his own considerable body of work, but also with his generosity as a mentor, teacher and colleague nurturing and influencing the work of others.
The Fund had 18 applications this year, and the OHS Section’s Scholarship Committee is pleased to announce that eight individuals have been selected to receive a scholarship – six ( students and two labor union applicants.
The 2005 James P. Keogh Student Award recipients are as follows:
- Mercedes A. Beaver is a MPH student in the department of Health Policy and Administration at Yale University School of Public Health. She has been involved in a summer research program working on health and safety conditions in a community of largely undocumented, non-unionized workers in Brooklyn, N.Y. She found that the effects of dated health policies and their inflexibility toward the changing face of the American workforce gave her a newfound perspective on what it means to be safe in one’s place of work. Marie states that her hope is to gain a challenging position in the field of public health specifically in affecting change for workers’ rights at a policy level.
- Arturo Elizarov is currently a law student at CUNY School of Law and has earned a MS in Labor Studies from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Arturo has recently completed an internship directly dealing with immigrant and undocumented workers’ health and safety issues in Brooklyn, N.Y., in conjunction with the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. He hopes his research will serve as an aid to the work being done by the union to organize the workers to prevent exploitation and to protect them in the workplace. Arturo’s ideal job after graduation from law school would be as an attorney for a non-profit organization, labor union or a labor and immigration law firm concentrating on the legal rights of immigrants and occupational health and safety law.
- Marie E. Gutierrez is a doctoral student in the Industrial Hygiene – Environmental Management at the University of Illinois, Chicago. While completing her Master's degree in Industrial Hygiene and Environmental Management from the University of Oklahoma, she assisted in the coordination of the lead-based paint abatement and control training program and translated materials into Spanish to facilitate the workers’ learning process. She has also volunteered with a variety of health and safety projects in the Hispanic community targeting various groups such as construction workers, painters, and children and families. Marie has stated that her ideal job would be working for the Hispanic community doing research to identify occupational and environmental risks and promoting, advocating and implementing programs to protect the health and well being of Hispanic workers and their families.
- Luiza G. Marinescu attends the University of Washington in Seattle and is currently working on a Master's in Nursing – Occupational and Environmental Health. Her focus of study is program development in occupational health nursing with particular interest in addressing issues at a population level. She worked this summer on a project in the San Francisco/Oakland area focusing on ergonomic issues among postal workers. She would like to eventually be in charge of a wellness and occupational health program to improve not only the occupational health and safety of the workers on the job but to make an impact on the overall health issues from the home and community environmental factors and cultural and societal issues.
- Laura Byrnes Podolsky is in the MPH program at the UCLA, School of Public Health. She has worked as a graduate student researcher with UCLA Labor Occupational Safety and Health Program’s Youth Project. Through the project Laura has learned more about popular education in action, raising awareness about OHS issues, and the challenges and opportunities involved in improving workplace safety for youth workers. Laura states that she is committed to working at the intersection of labor rights, immigration issues, and occupational safety and health and that an ideal job would be with a labor union or at a worker center.
- LaTrice Porter-Thomas is in the MPH program at the University of Illinois, Chicago(UIC) School of Public Health-EOHS. Her current studies have complimented her undergraduate work in industrial hygiene and she has been working with two US Postal Service facilities on their Biologic Detection Systems and its integration with local county health departments, law enforcement agencies, and fire departments. She is hoping to get into the doctoral program at UIC and would like to head up an environmental health or occupational health and safety program and teach at UIC in the EOHS division.
The 2005 James P. Keogh Labor Award recipients are students from the George Meany Labor Studies National Labor College in Maryland and are as follows:
- Emanuel B. Blackwell is an asbestos worker from Glenwood, Illinois who did his senior thesis on the health effects and legal issues of asbestos exposure. Emanuel works with CACOSH (Chicago Area Committee on Occupational Safety and Health). He has been involved in applying his thesis work to practice and on the organizing committee for asbestos workers in Chicago and creating new safety guidelines.
- Michael J. Ripoll is a member of the Fire Department City of New York(FDNY)and he has concentrated his studies involving the use of firefighting turnout gear in a chemical weapons environment. He has also been involved with training members of the FDNY on health and safety issues and hopes to be able to reach other firefighters and first responders in the rest of the country with training on the selection of and use of and limitations to PPE involved in hazardous materials situations.
The James P. Keogh Memorial Scholarship Fund helps students and workers to participate in the annual APHA meeting by paying the APHA annual meeting registration fee, a one-year APHA membership and a $300.00 stipend for conference-related expenses to scholarship awardees. The Scholarship Fund needs the support of all members of the OHS section. Please be generous in your tax-deductible contribution to the James P. Keogh Memorial Scholarship Fund. Checks should be made payable to APHA-Jim Keogh Scholarship Fund. Mail checks to APHA, 800 I Street, NW, Washington, DC 20001, Attn. Sharon McCarthy.
Please welcome and greet all our award recipients at the OHS Section meetings this year in Philadelphia, PA.