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El Paso, United States

The Challenge

El Paso, the nineteenth most populous city in the United States, is located in the far west of Texas. El Paso aims to establish itself as the premier community in the Southwest and the most livable city in the United States. One of its livability and sustainability challenges is the air pollution and associated health impacts from car and truck traffic, including the large number of vehicles idling while waiting to cross the US-Mexico border on a daily basis.

The city is already exploring ways to reduce car and truck traffic for the duration of a major new road construction initiative.   Rather than think of this as a temporary reduction in traffic and air pollution, El Paso’s Chief Resilience Officer, Nicole Ferrini, and the City’s Sustainability specialist, Lauren Baldwin, want to reduce traffic and air pollution permanently – so as to move El Paso toward its goal of being “the lowest car-dependent city in the Southwest”. Documenting the connection between traffic, air pollution, and health impacts would be a big step in that direction. Health is a priority in El Paso, and there is little data on the health-related impacts of air pollution from traffic.

 

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A Scientific Partner

Lauren and Nicole are looking for one or more scientific partners to help understand and demonstrate the connection between traffic, air pollution, and health impacts and increase awareness of the health impacts of air pollution resulting from traffic. This, they believe, will help El Paso residents and leaders embrace the transition to a less car-dependent city. While some original data collection and analysis may be possible, initial work will most likely focus on locating, correlating and analyzing existing data.

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What Skills

  • A broad understanding of air quality and pollution is important, especially air pollution from traffic and in climatic conditions like El Paso
  • Some expertise or experience connecting traffic-related air pollution to public health impacts would be helpful.
  • Skill representing the link between air pollution, health impacts, sustainability, and livability to city leaders, aides, and the public in one-on-one conversations, formal and informal presentations, webinars, and etc.
  • Ability to operate effectively and respectfully in environments where science is not the only factor, and often not even the leading factor, in decision making.
  • An impressive academic or professional resume to help establish credibility
  • Ability to interact well with El Paso’s current and new resilience partners, including Rockefeller’s 100 Resilient Cities Initiative and others.
  • The ability to explain things clearly and in every-day language.
  • Ability to interact in-person in El Paso.
  • Ability to interact well with a diverse group of stakeholders and respect community input and participation. Ability to communicate in Spanish is an asset.

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