Research & Writing Projects
“Summer in the City: A History of Environment and Health in New York, 1860-1940”
Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society Fellow Spring 2020
“Melting Metropolis: Everyday Histories of Health and Heat in London, New York, and Paris since 1945”
Wellcome Trust Discovery Award, 2022
Urban heat raises a host of health problems. Heatwaves are torrid manifestations of how high temperatures disrupt urban life, especially for the most marginalized, and they bring issues of climate injustice into stark relief. Yet extreme temperatures are only one aspect of urban heat and health, a changing relationship that has impacted past and present communities. This project brings together a team of scholars, a community engagement manager, and a participatory artist to transform understandings of urban heat and health. It explores the history of high temperatures in the postwar era, taking three global cities as its focus: London, New York and Paris. Drawing on and contributing to studies on climate justice, it investigates how Londoners, New Yorkers and Parisians have experienced heat and sought to mitigate its impact on their health and wellbeing. Community engagement (CE) is threaded throughout the project and informs how the project team seeks to rethink understandings of urban heat by moving beyond a focus on 'resilience.' In seeking to create new academic and non-academic conversations on the challenging interaction between the climate crisis and cities, it will provide fresh perspectives on urban history, environmental history, the medical humanities, and emotional and sensory history.
Grantholders: Dr Kara Schlichting, Queens College, City University of New York, United States, Dr Laura Balderstone, University of Liverpool, United Kingdom, Dr Christopher Pearson, University of Liverpool, United Kingdom, Dr Shelda-Jane Smith, University of Liverpool, United Kingdom, Research Artist Bryony Benge-Abbott.
American Museum of Natural History Fall 2024 exhibit "Portraits on Climate and Health: Dreams We Carry”by Inside Out.
How is climate change reshaping our lives—and what are the stories of transformation and dreams of a healthier future we carry with us? Portraits on Climate and Health: Dreams We Carry is a group action installation of the Inside Out Project. This installation is part of Canopy, Wellcome’s citizen art and science festival, bringing health to the heart of Climate Week NYC, 2024.
