October 23 | October 24 | Press Release

Sandra Steingraber, PhD, is an ecologist and cancer survivor. She is the author of Living Downstream: An Ecologist Looks at Cancer and the Environment. The highly acclaimed Living Downstream presents cancer as a human rights issue. Her current research examines perinatal risk factors for breast cancer. See the press release here. Additional information including marketing materials and regristration forms are available from PSU Outreach and Cooperative Extension..

The event will be SATELLITE broadcast to all interested coalitions and clinics. All coalitions and clinics that sponsor a satellite downlink will receive media kits and financial support to recruit audience to their sites.

Continuing education units for physicians, nurses, health education specialists and family and consumer science professionals will be available.

Those who attend the satellite presentation will be able to:

1. State at least 3 potential causes of cancer that are currently being investigated by environmental epidemiologists.
2. Recognize a potential relationship between perinatal environmental exposures and breast cancer.
3. Identify three distinct ways that volunteers, lay leaders and health professionals can work with a community coalition to address environmental issues is a professional or volunteer capacity within 6 months.
4. Share the information regarding environmental exposures and potential cancer risk, as covered in the presentation, with community members, colleagues or family members who did not attend the presentation within thirty days of the presentation.

Afternoon - Tape session for Take Note, a 15 minute pubic television program broadcast from our campus studios throughout 22 counties in Central Pennsylvania. Take Note commonly features nationally known researchers, authors, faculty members and many other who address current issues.

Evening - Presentation to approximately 200 at the Penn Stater. This session will be satellite or PicTel broadcast to members of 17 community cancer coalitions in Pennsylvania and New York.

Morning - Visit informally with students from the Biology Department, Ecology Program, Women in Science and Education Program and Women Studies Programs.

Evening - Participate in a live call-in broadcast on To the Best of My Knowledge, 6:45 - 7:00 p.m. with Penn State President Dr. Graham Spanier and another specialist, to be identified, on the topic of environmental contamination, environmental justice or other topics that will be identified by the show hosts.

Sandra Steingraber - Author of Living Downstream to visit Penn State University

On October 23-24, 2000, the Penn State Eberly College of Science, the Biology Department, Ecology Program, WISE, the Department of Women’s Studies and the Pennsylvania Breast Cancer and Environmental Risk Factor Project will host a series of educational events at University Park, featuring an internationally recognized ecologist and author, Sandra Steingraber, Ph.D.

Dr. Steingraber received her Doctorate in biology from the University of Michigan and Master's degree in English from Illinois State University. She is the author of Post Diagnosis, a volume of poetry, and co-author of a book on ecology and human rights in Africa, The Spoils of Famine. She has taught biology at Columbia College, Chicago, held visiting fellowships at the University of Illinois, Radcliffe/Harvard, and Northeastern University and was recently appointed to serve on President Clinton's National Action Plan on Breast Cancer, administered by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Steingraber's highly acclaimed book, Living Downstream: An Ecologist Looks at Cancer and the Environment, presents cancer as a human rights issue. It is the first to bring together data on toxic releases - now made available under right-to-know laws - with newly released data from U.S. cancer registries. Living Downstream has won praise from international media, including The Washington Post, The Nation, The Chicago Tribune, Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Weekly, The Lancet, and The London Times. In 1997, Steingraber was named one of Ms. Magazine's Women of the Year. In 1998, she received, from the Jennifer Altman foundation, the first annual Altman Award for "the inspiring and poetic use of science to elucidate the causes of cancer," and from the New England chapter of the American Medical Association, the Will Solimene Award for "excellence in medical communication." In 1999, the Sierra Club heralded Steingraber a "the new Rachel Carson."

An enthusiastic and sought-after public speaker, Steingraber has keynoted conferences on human health and the environment throughout the United States and Canada and has been invited to lecture at many universities, medical schools, and teaching hospitals -- including Harvard, Yale, Cornell, and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. She is recognized for her ability to serve as a two-way translator between the research community and the community of cancer activists. Interviews with Steingraber have appeared in The Chicago Tribune, USA Today, National Public Radio and The Today Show.

Dr. Steingraber recently held a position as visiting Assistant Professor at Cornell University’s Center for the Environment in Ithaca. There she turned her attention to the ecology of pregnancy and childbirth, including a detailed review of the prenatal risk factors for breast cancer. Her research allowed her to look closely at the development of the mammary gland from fetal life through adolescence, pregnancy and menopause. She has investigated issues of breast milk contamination and its affects on the health of the nursing infant and mother. Sandra says that just as Living Downstream was inspired by her own cancer diagnosis, her new book project is a direct result of giving birth to her daughter, Faith, in 1998.