Science for Social Impact Award

The Science for Social Impact Award is a $250 micro-grant designed to support scholars presenting at the American Public Health Association (APHA) annual meeting whose work mobilizes academia in the service of communities at the margins. While this initiative is Center-specific and not affiliated with APHA, it is rooted in our conviction that science must remain accountable to the people and places most harmed by structural violence.

Core Commitments

All projects must approach their work through a public health and climate justice lens—foregrounding equity while interrogating structures of power. We are especially interested in scholarship that refuses the “lesser evil” trap and instead presses into the deeper forces driving health and climate crises. Our focus is not simply on identifying inequities, but on advancing solutions rooted in community needs and practice-based wisdom.

What We Seek

We welcome projects that move beyond observation to action, flipping the traditional academic model by prioritizing benefits to communities themselves. Research and publications remain important, but always secondary to lived impact. We are especially drawn to work that interrogates entrenched systems, including nonprofits and professional associations, and that names what is often left unsaid in public health discourse.

Areas of particular interest include:

• • • • Planetary health and justice: envisioning solutions beyond bipartisan market fundamentalism.

      • Global consequences of American imperialism: tracing its impacts on health and climate.

      • Critical examinations of the “Abundance” movement: questioning whether it reproduces neoliberal logics or austerity under new labels.

      • Public health leadership: analyzing silence, complicity, or failures of accountability across sectors.

      • Abolitionist perspectives: exposing how liberal governance can sustain inequities while disavowing them rhetorically. For instance, shifts in language—from “kids in cages” under one administration to “migrant facilities for children” under another—illustrate the continuity of harm despite political posturing.

Why This Matters

This award supports scholarship that insists science must serve justice. We are looking for work that not only critiques systems but also imagines pathways forward—centering those communities most impacted by structural violence, environmental degradation, and climate crisis.

Eligibility

• • • Must meet one of the following criteria:

      • A student enrolled in a public health program (MPH, DrPH, PhD, DHSc)

      • A student in an adjacent field (e.g., MS in Climate-Health, Climate Epidemiology)

      • A post-doctoral scholar

      • An early career faculty member (preference will be given to non-tenure track, non-tenured, adjunct, or education/practice-based faculty)

    • Must have already been accepted to present at APHA.

    • Must already be planning to attend the conference and present.

    • Grants will be disbursed directly via Venmo to the applicant.

Deadline: September 30, 2025, 11:59 PM Eastern.

Our Commitment: References

As part of our commitment to rejecting white supremacy in all its forms, we do not require letters of recommendation.