Examining persistent environmental justice issues in the United States: New approaches with historical maps
David Gonzalez, Professor
Public Health
Applications for Fall 2025 are closed for this project.
In recent years, there has been a growing focus on examining the associations between historical racist policies and present-day health disparities. For example, a growing body of evidence documents that environmental hazards (such as oil wells and urban heat islands) are more likely to be located in neighborhoods that were historically redlined in the mid-20th century, compared to similar neighborhoods that were not redlined. More work is needed to understand the interplay between redlining and other policies that contributed to racialized residential segregation. We are recruiting a Research Apprentice who is interested in helping us leverage newly digitized historical maps from the early 20th century to examine disparities in the siting of hazardous sites in California cities. This is an exploratory project that would involve curating, combining, and exploring historical and modern geospatial datasets and set the scene for future work in this space, in a new collaboration between UC Berkeley and UC Merced. We will provide training on fundamental data science skills and applying statistical inference methods.
Role:
1. Hone fundamental data science skills, including managing diverse datasets and codebases for collaborative projects
2. Assemble, prepare, and curate historical environmental and sociodemographic datasets
3. Conduct exploratory statistical analyses related to historical environmental justice issues
4. Synthesize and assist with interpreting results
5. Participate in bi-weekly EQUIS Lab meetings
Qualifications: 1. Experience working with geospatial information systems (GIS) (required)
2. Familiarity with coding in R or Python (required)
3. Interest in applying data science skills to research questions in public health, environmental justice, and/or related fields (desired)
4. Willingness to be an active member of EQUIS Lab for the duration of the apprenticeship (desired)
Hours: 3-5 hrs
Off-Campus Research Site: Apprentices will meet on-campus or remotely every 1–2 weeks and are otherwise free to work remotely
Related website: https://
Social Sciences Biological & Health Sciences