Ellen Griffith Spears, an assistant professor in New College and the department of American studies at the University of Alabama, has been selected to received the Arthur J. Viseltear Prize from the medical care section of the American Public Health Association. The prize is awarded to the author of a book that sheds favorable light on the medical community.
Dr. Spears is being honored for her book Baptized in PCBs: Race, Pollution and Justice in an All-American Town (University of North Carolina Press, 2014). The book tells the story of environmental pollution in the city of Anniston, Alabama, particularly in the city’s African American and low-income communities.
Dr. Spears is a graduate of the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. from Emory University in Atlanta.