In a cubicle near a south-facing window on the fourth floor home of the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health Department of Environmental and Occupational Health (EOH), you’ll find Ploy Pattanun Achakulwisut, PhD, MA, MSci. As a postdoctoral scientist in the department, Achakulwisut studies the health impacts of air pollution and climate change with Susan Anenberg, PhD, MS.
Achakulwisut is also one of the people “cooking up the boldest, most innovative solutions you’ve never heard of to fix the biggest challenges that face our planet,” according to Grist. The self-styled “irreverent news outlet” has been identifying the 50 most promising green innovators and influencers each year since 2016. Grist credits Achakulwisut’s ability to effectively combine scientific research with climate activism for earning her a spot in its 2019 list.
Editorials are a major outlet for Achakulwisut’s advocacy. As she explained in a blog urging her fellow climate scientists to become more publicly engaged that was published in Scientific American in 2017: “I chose to pursue a Ph.D. in climate science under the assumption that this was the best way I could contribute to addressing one of the world’s most pressing problems. But halfway through my Ph.D., the emergence of the fossil fuel divestment movement forced me to challenge that assumption.”
Earlier this year, Achakulwisut published a piece in Scientific American summarizing eight reasons why climate change is a public health emergency. She has also published editorials in The Guardian, Mashable, and The Conversation.
Achakulwisut’s passion for raising awareness and inspiring action to mitigate climate change and air pollution also inspired her to serve as a SustainUS youth delegate to the 2014 United Nations climate negotiations and to lead campaigns to engage youth and academics in climate advocacy.
As a researcher, Achakulwisut’s current projects include working with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to quantify how climate change may influence levels of airborne dust and public health risks in the U.S. Southwest. A second project involves assessing the global, national, and urban impacts of traffic pollution on asthma development in children. She is also member of the NASA Health and Air Quality Applied Sciences Team Indicators Tiger Team effort to quantify the burden of disease from air pollution in cities worldwide and determine the implications for urban sustainable development.