SAVE THE DATE! 

Dr. Gabriel Filippelli

Professor of Earth Sciences and Adjunct Professor of Public Health

Director, Center for Urban Health

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis

Dr. Filippelli's lecture will address lead exposure, distribution, and avoidance strategies in urban settings such as the one in South Bend, Indiana. This lecture is co-sponsored by the Eck Institute for Global Health and Environmental Change Initiative​.

BIO: Gabriel Filippelli is a Professor of Earth Sciences and Directs the Center for Urban Health at IUPUI. His research is aimed at understanding how urban infrastructures impact environmental health, and resultant human exposures to beneficial and harmful environmental components. One research focus has been on characterizing distribution, transport, and exposure of lead and other heavy metals in urban environments. His laboratory is best known for identifying sources of continued lead exposure in children resulting in chronic lower-level lead poisoning in urban children. He has also developed several exposure models for lead and particulates from data in multiple cities. These contributions come from the integration of environmental data with human health datasets both spatially and temporally. Filippelli initiated the Safe Urban Gardening Initiative to both promote urban agriculture and mitigation of food deserts and to protect adults and children from potential exposure to legacy contaminants (like lead) that are commonly found in soils of older cities. This citizen science program to data has analyzed over 3,000 soil samples from 

eople’s homes, and has distributed educational materials and gardening recommendations throughout Indianapolis and beyond. This experience at the interface of community health and basic research, has revealed to the vast chasm that exists between the realms, and the need to work at bridging that chasm through new ideas and interdisciplinary partnerships.