Madeleine Scammell

Madeleine Scammell, core faculty with the Boston University Institute for Global Sustainability (IGS), is an Associate Professor of Environmental Health at the Boston University School of Public Health and a JPB Environmental Health Fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health. Her expertise is in the area of community-driven and community-based participatory research and includes the use of qualitative methods in the area of environmental health and epidemiologic studies. In 2017 Dr. Scammell was awarded an NIEHS/NIH Outstanding New Environmental Scientist award, establishing the Mesoamerican Nephropathy Occupational Study (MANOS), longitudinal study of agricultural workers in El Salvador and Nicaragua. These efforts are focused on identifying and preventing exposures that may contribute to the epidemic of chronic kidney disease in Central America known as Mesoamerican Nephropathy (MeN), specifically extreme heat and physical exertion, exposure to the herbicide glyphosate, and heavy metals. In 2021 Dr. Scammell was awarded a U01 to establish a Field Epidemiology Site as part of the NIDDK/NIEHS/Fogarty Institute CURE Consortium studying chronic kidney disease of uncertain etiology in agricultural communities. Both studies are part of the Boston University Research Group for the study of Chronic Kidney Disease in Central America and include long-term research relationships with investigators in both El Salvador and Nicaragua.

In Massachusetts, Dr. Scammell leads the Local Public Health Institute out of BUSPH, with funding from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. In her own neighborhoods, Dr. Scammell co-leads the Chelsea & East Boston Heat Study, C-HEAT, examining exposure to heat and poor air quality, where we live, work, and play. This is in partnership with GreenRoots, Chelsea, a grassroots environmental justice organization. Dr. Scammell led the Community Engagement Cores of two research centers: The Boston University Superfund Research Center (funded by NIEHS/NIH), and the Center for Research on Social and Environmental Stressors in Housing across the Lifecourse (joint center between Boston University and Harvard-Chan School of Public Health funded by NIMHD/NIH and EPA). She continues to develop and support mechanisms to initiate and sustain long-and short-term research relationships between community groups and scientists, and respond to community requests for scientific assistance. Dr. Scammell partners with Alternatives for Community & Environment, Boston Housing Authority, the Boston Public Health Commission. Dr. Scammell served on the Board of Health in the City of Chelsea for 10 years, and currently serves as Chair of the board of directors of the Science & Environmental Health Network.

In 2014 Dr. Scammell co-edited with Charles Levenstein, The Toxic Schoolhouse, published by Baywood Press (now Routledge).