Ingrid Waldron

Overview

Dr. Ingrid Waldron is Professor and HOPE Chair in Peace and Health in the Global Peace and Social Justice Program at McMaster University, the Founder and Executive Director of the Environmental Noxiousness, Racial Inequities and Community Health Project (The ENRICH Project), and the Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Canadian Coalition for Environmental and Climate Justice (CCECJ). Her research focuses on the health and mental health impacts of social inequalities and discrimination in Black, Indigenous, and other racialized communities, including environmental racism and climate change inequities, mental illness, dementia, and COVID-19. Her research and advocacy on mental illness experienced by Black women in the Halifax Regional Municipality played a significant role in the creation of the Sisterhood Initiative, a new health service for Black women. Her research and advocacy, as well as her book There’s Something in the Water: Environmental Racism in Indigenous and Black Communities and her 2020 Netflix documentary of the same name have played a pivotal role in creating awareness about and addressing environmental racism. In 2015, she co-developed with former politician Lenore Zann the first environmental racism private members bill in Nova Scotia (Bill 111) and in 2020, the first federal environmental racism private members’ bill (Bill C-226).

Dr. Waldron has received numerous awards for her research, book and community advocacy, including the Education and Thought Leadership Award from Clean50 for her ENRICH Project, the Leadership in Advocacy Award from Research Canada, the Society for Socialist Studies Errol Sharpe Book Prize for her book There’s Something in the Water:, the Atlantic Book Award for Scholarly Writing for her book, the President’s Research Excellence Award – Research Impact from Dalhousie University, and the Advocate of the Year Award from Springtide Collective.

Affiliations

• Professor and HOPE Chair in Peace and Health
• Faculty of Humanities, McMaster University
• Professor, Department of History ​
• Associate Professor, Faculty of Health, Dalhousie University

Education

• BA (Psychology), McGill University, Montreal, Quebec
• MA (Intercultural Education: Race, Ethnicity & Culture, Policy Studies), Institute of Education, University of London, London, England
• PhD (Sociology & Equity Studies in Education Department), University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario
• Postdoctoral Fellow, Centre for Women’s Health, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto