Building Materials and Human Health

As Director of the Healthy Materials Lab, Alison leverages her practice-based experience as an architect and her knowledge and experience as a long-term academic leader to confront one of the more serious and often overlooked environmental challenges of our time: the health of the built environment. How do we make profound and long-term changes to everyday design practice to create truly healthy buildings, especially for those in the most need of affordable housing? HML creates resources, educational programming, and prototypical innovative housing models for a new post-petroleum world. Alison is co-Principal Investigator of the Healthy Affordable Materials Project (HAMP). The Project is a long-term coalition of four organizations that work together to remove harmful chemicals from the built environment. She is also the recipient of multiple grants that support the work of the Lab.

Alison’s work draws from the long tradition at The New School University’s commitment to promoting community-based sustainability, social engagement, and environmental justice, especially in her teaching in architectural design studios at Parsons. She lectures widely disseminating current thinking within the field of material health.

Alison Mears and Jonsara Ruth were awarded the 2022 Women in Architecture Innovation Award from Architectural Record and co edited the 2023 publication “Material Health: Design Frontiers”.

Catherine is a trained artist, designer, and educator. She has 12 years experience in designing and project managing healthier and sustainable interiors. Her current focus is on developing processes to enable change and strengthen a sustainable and regenerative built environment. As an educator she teaches classes on materials and guides the development of methodologies to eliminate toxics and reduce environmental impacts. Her practice focuses on renovation, re-use, and repair of existing structures; implementing core design and construction techniques to build healthier, affordable and sustainable built environments.

Catherine had led educational programming at Parsons Healthy Materials Lab since 2017 and holds a Master of Fine Art in Interior design from Parsons School of Design and an hons degree in Fine Craft Design (Embroidery) from University of Ulster, Belfast, Northern Ireland. She is from Sligo in the west of Ireland.

Ogonnaya Dotson Newman is a senior program officer in the Environment program at The JPB Foundation. Ogonnaya manages the environmental health portfolio focused on detoxifying natural systems and the build environment by eliminating indoor and outdoor pollutants. Ogonnaya comes to JPB with years of experience in community-based participatory research, partnership and collaboration for organizing around complex environmental issues and environmental justice.

Most recently, Ogonnaya was the Assistant Director of Public Housing and Health based at the New York City Housing Authority and the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Ogonnaya holds a Master of Public Health with a focus on Environmental Health and a certificate in Health Geoinformatics.