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- My name is Luz Guel.

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I'm the Director of Environmental Justice

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and Community Engagement

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at the Department of
Environmental Medicine

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at the Icahn School of
Medicine at Mount Sinai.

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Some of the main environmental issues

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that a lot of community
residents are facing,

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especially here in the city,

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are related to heat,
flooding and air pollution.

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So one of the reasons
I'm really passionate

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about community science is
because I was not trained

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to be a scientist
through formal education,

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such as having an advanced degree.

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Some of the work that I end up doing

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is that I end up
organizing with communities

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that are most impacted
by environmental issues

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by developing community
science initiatives

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that document these environmental issues.

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Usually when we're
working with communities,

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we end up focusing on the issues
that are priority to them.

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So here in the city, most of
the time it's air pollution,

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so particulate matter and
other sources of air pollution

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so those are usually the topics

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we end up focusing with communities.

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We end up working together
by meeting biweekly

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and organizing community events

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so that we can be able to
identify these problems,

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but also develop a
community science initiative

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that can document these
environmental issues

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in the community.

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Instead of having researchers
like me go into a community

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and be like, "You should be
focusing on all these issues",

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but instead, they get
to communicate to us,

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"This is what's happening.

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This is what we wanna prioritize.

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Let's work together to be able to develop

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this community science program."

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We really, truly believe
that those most impacted

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by environmental issues
know their lived experience

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and experience these
environmental issues every day,

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which means that they observe them.

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Particulate matter are really
small particles in the air.

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Many of the sources of
particulate matter come

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from cars, come from
trucks, come from buses,

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come from any sort of engine
that ends up combusting

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and usually when it's really hot outside,

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then that air quality gets even worse

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because it ends up reacting
to those pollutants

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and so those are one of the reasons

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why we really focus on particulate matter.

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After we end up collecting
all this information,

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one of the things that we end up doing

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is how do we tell the
story of what's happening

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and really humanizing what is
happening in southeast Queens

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by having community members
really tell their own stories.

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One of the main policies
that we've been able to stop

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from happening in southeast Queens

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is that there was this policy

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that was trying to expand
the waste of communities

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that are already facing

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all these environmental justice issues

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and our group gathered together

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and put together multiple testimonies

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from community residents and from experts

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to City Council to tell them

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that they should not expand the waste

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that is coming into southeast Queens.

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So that was a really big win for us,

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knowing that we could
be able to come together

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and testify in front of City Council.