Dr. Yoshira Ornelas Van Horne

Biography

Yoshira Ornelas Van Horne is an exposure scientist and environmental justice scholar, currently serving as the Assistant Director of the Agents of Change Environmental Justice Fellowship, where she trains early career scientists in science communications. As the Deputy Director of the Environmental Health Sciences Research for Teachers and High School Students (EARTH) program, funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, she helps structure a summer research program focused on environmental health sciences for high school students and teachers from Native communities in the Northern Plains. Her research, funded by the JPB Environmental Health Fellowship at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, focuses on addressing unequal exposures to harmful contaminants affecting structurally marginalized communities. She is actively engaged in projects utilizing novel methods in source apportionment of air pollution and characterizing exposures to volatile organic compounds in partnership with community advocates in Louisiana. A proponent of building health equity through community-driven research and communication, Dr. Ornelas Van Horne emphasizes characterizing inequities in cumulative exposures to support training efforts and solutions driven by community needs. She also serves as co-chair of the General Scientific Meetings Committee for the International Society of Exposure Science.

Research Interests