Dr. Adrienne Hollis - Environmental Justice & GIS

In the opening episode of North Star Gaze Season 3, host Erica Phillips welcomes Dr. Adrienne Hollis—environmental toxicologist, attorney, and nationally recognized leader in environmental justice—as co-host for a quarter focused on GIS and Environmental Justice. Together, they explore how mapping, data access, and storytelling can expose historic inequities, prepare communities for climate risk, and shift responses from reaction to prevention. From redlining and disaster preparedness to mentorship and non-traditional partnerships, this conversation sets the stage for a powerful season examining how geography can be a tool for justice rather than exclusion.  

Transcript

Speaker: 0:15

Be black. Be black. Be bold. Bold. Be innovative. Show the world equitable gl. We're coming together as a collective to celebrate people of African descent, the diaspora, and talking about geospatial equity and justice. You're listening to the North Star Gaze, a podcast with intimate stories from GL luminaries.

Erica: 0:49

Welcome to season three of the North Star Gaze Podcast. I'm Erica Phillips, and this year I'm serving as both producer and a co-host for this season. Aisha Jenkins, who developed this podcast is pursuing her passions for travel, educating others about GIS and raising her beautiful daughters. When she asked me to take care of the podcast she created, I was floored, a little scared and excited to see what I could do with this growing. So for those familiar with the North Star Gaze Podcast, you'll notice that the format will be different. This year, we're switching to a quarterly theme, a quarterly topic, and a dedicated host for each quarter for this first quarter of 2026. The theme or topic is GIS and Environmental Justice. For this quarter, I've asked Dr. Adrian Hollis to join me as the co-host, so please join me in welcoming Adrian. Hi Adrian. How are you doing? Hi, Erica. I'm fine. Thank you so much for inviting me to co-host with you. So wonderful. Thank you, Adrian. I'm gonna start by trying to introduce you, the audience to Dr. Hollis in case you're not familiar with her work, Adrian is currently serving as the vice President for Environmental Justice, health and Community Resilience and Revitalization for the National Wildlife Federation. In that role, she leads the environmental justice team to advance environmental and climate justice policy and programs while examining the related health concerns posed. The environmental Justice program serves as a recognized resource for communities and others stakeholders. Adrian has more than 30 years of experience in the environmental justice and public health arena. As an environmental toxicologist and an environmental attorney, she works at the intersection of environmental justice, health disparities, and climate change. Dr. Hollis works to identify priority health concerns related to climate change and other environmental assaults, and she evaluates climate and energy policy approaches for their ability to effectively address climate change and to benefit underserved communities. Dr. Hollis is the co-director of the EPA Region three Thriving Communities Technical Assistance Center Grant, the EJTC TAC Grant, which was terminated on February 21st, 2025 by the EPA. She's also a member of the e P'S Board of Scientific Counselors Climate Change Subcommittee, a subcommittee, which unfortunately no longer exists. Dr. Hollis serves on the board of Directors for the Chisholm Legacy Project and the Green Leadership Trust, and is a former member of the Clean Air Act Advisory Council, the Maryland Department of the Environment's, air Quality Control Advisory Council, and the Endangered Species Coalition. She's an author of the Fifth National Climate Assessment Mitigation chapter and was an author for the First National Nature Assessment before its tur. She's also a professional lecturer at George Washington University's Milken School of Public Health in the Environmental and Occupational Health Program, and formerly taught advocacy at American University and its school of law. Dr. Hollis is one of 25. Recipients of the William K. Riley Award, which she received in April of this year. Dr. Hollis received her bachelor of science degree from Jackson State University with a major in biology. Her doctor of philosophy in biomedical sciences from Meharry Medical. School in Nashville, Tennessee, and her juris doctor from Rutger School of Law in Newark, New Jersey. So as you can hear, Dr. Hollis is a powerhouse, and not only is she a powerhouse, she has invited some of the preeminent minds in the. Arena of environmental justice to speak with us in the coming episodes of the Gays podcast. So, wow. Dr. Hollis, thank you again for agreeing to be co-host this quarter of 2026, and welcome back to a new year. We're technically closing out 2025 while this is being recorded, but by the time you all hear it, it will be 2026. I'm going to be believing that that the end of the year. On a high note for you. Lemme start by asking you, Dr. Hollis, what are your goals for 2026? What are the most important things ahead for you in this coming year?

Dr. Adrienne Hollis: 5:21

Well, um, great question, and again, thank you for having me. I think, um, and I wrote this sort of in a, in a note published recently that the, you know, we know. What's happening, right? We know the challenges and it's been a hard year, and one of the great things that I'm seeing is the non-traditional partnerships. And so my goal is to see more of that and to participate in more of that and to support more community work. You know, now that's gonna be challenging since we lost, um, our funding. And, um, it's hard to find funding for environmental justice generally, even more so now, given that it's not a very welcome issue these, you know, in the next few years. But I guess my overall goal is to be as helpful to communities and as much of a partner as I can be.

Erica: 7:39

So Dr. Hollis, you've mentioned non-traditional partnerships. What might those look like?

Erica: 7:46

Very good question. And traditionally you see partnerships between communities and nonprofits or community organizations and, universities and things like that. But non-traditional ones would be if you were dealing with, for example, issues around homelessness and you may partner with an apparel company or something to provide coats and the like or insulated blankets for the un homed things like that. Just looking at addressing the specific needs of an issue, right? Like with the, evacuation kits. You need to work with an organization like we tried to do that had. A history of working in areas where there were catastrophic events. So some of the equipment they had were specific to that, you know, helping identify and locate people, you just said a key word for those of us who are in the GIS world and many of the GIS practitioners have been sent out to work on disaster preparedness and disaster response activities. Right. So that's a world that GIS practitioners are well familiar with, but so is environmental. Concerns. I'm not sure if I would say that environmental justice has been top of mind for the GIS world, but environmental concerns. And, uh, the founder of Esri is, is in his way, I would say an environmental activist, but this work of environmental justice is so important. And I'm, I quite honestly, I'm really thrilled with the people that you brought. Into this conversation that we would not normally have had access to. So I want you all to listen out because later on in this quarter you are going to hear us talking to Rashida Ferdinand, um, about her work with Sankofa New Orleans. And they are really, I think they tify this way of making. Environmental action available to all members of the community, not just the affluent. And so I, I'm hoping you can talk a little bit more about the different ways in which you heard the people that you invited to speak on the podcast link place in geography to environmental justice. Sure, sure. You know, one of the first things that, uh, one of the cross-cutting messages, I think that I noted from all of the presentations was this need for collaboration and collaborative partnerships. A second one is based on the fact that environmental justice communities are located or. Have been redlined in the past or, or it may not be called redlining today, but it still exists are located in the, in the less desirable areas in a city. So mapping helps with that because as we learned with Katrina and New Orleans, there are certain areas of a city, a town. A state that are more at risk than other areas. And those are traditionally and historically areas where communities of color live. And that's why mapping is so important. So we already know where to go first, where to look, where to have preemptive plans in place, right. So instead of addressing an issue after it's happened, let's prepare for it ahead of time. We know that we need to evacuate this part of town because it's on our map. And I don't mean a FEMA flood map. I'm talking about a more detailed map that has that's up to date, and that has information on who, where. What is happening, all of the, you know, they, there aren't very many cars. There's no way out. Or maybe it's a rural area with only one way in and one way out located next to a compressor station, right? Those are things we need to know, and that's why mapping is so, so important. And it's also, um, very sadly, it's very challenging for communities to, um, get that type of information regularly because traditionally it's expensive. And a lot of organizations don't have funding for that. Yeah. You know, one of the things I learned was that there are databases, GIS databases that are open to the public. And I'm still boggled by that. That is phenomenal. You know, and we actually are using some of that in our work with pipelines in the deep south. So with Monte Cole, and you'll hear about that in one of the podcasts early on. Fantastic. So you talked about community collaboration. One of the things I heard as we were conducting these interviews was the topic of equity, but not everybody approaches equity the same way. And one of the things I heard you say is that the word equity is sometimes used improperly. Yes. What do you mean by that? Uh, that's, um. I think I have a, that's a thing with me is that we, uh, there are people who, some who interchange equity and environmental justice and you know, and they're not the same thing. Are they both important? Absolutely. You can't have one without the other. I mean, you can't have environmental justice without understanding equity. But to me they're different because environmental justice has traditionally focused on. Historically, black. Black and brown people. Black people and, and how they have been disenfranchised, deliberately ostracized and marginalized and you know, all of the things on purpose because of their skin color. When we, it's the whole premise behind Black Lives Matter and all lives matter, and we're not saying all lives don't matter, but we're saying this particular group has been targeted. That needs to be addressed because that's a different type of issue. Yeah, Because everybody isn't challenged like that. Everybody isn't marginalized. Everybody isn't considered a sacrifice community that only occurs in black and brown and rural and poor communities. Right. So this is one of the things often when people look at these issues of justice and my perception is that. Black and brown people are perceived as being the only people who are impacted and that we are disproportionately impacted, but we are not the only ones impacted. And the legacy that continues is the real issue. So I was just. Going on the record or saying, I listened to other podcasts, and one of the podcasts I was listening to was Trevor Noahs, and in a recent episode they talked about the lasting legacy post apartheid. Right? So apartheid ended, but the legacy was still showing up in that children. That came out of the B stands in the poorer communities were physically smaller than the children from communities that had access to clean food ample access to food and water and recreation for decades and decades. So, yes, we're all supposedly equal now, but the lasting impacts, go on. It takes a very long time to undo the damage that has been done. And that's one of the things that I'm concerned about. As we are in this fraught time right now, some damage is being done and I am concerned about how. We can all work together to preserve information, preserve data, and chart a course forward. So that's one of the reasons I really was excited about having you on this podcast because you've worked everywhere I can think of. In this arena, you've done all of the important work in government agencies, in nonprofits you know, you've done all the different types of things one can do around environmental justice. So I wanna pull our audience onto your coattails to say, where do you need us? What do you want from the GIS community? Yeah. That is simply complicated. But the thing is that I've worked in all those spaces, but I never finished any of them because there are so many things that are needed and for the GIS community, you know, because I feel like, um, a lot of. The data and information we need is not an essential location or is not, in my vision there's this map that this interactive map sort of like, you know, we are trying to create one, but, uh, you know, we're short on funds and doing the best we can. But if there was a way that all of the data could be. Layered in one map instead of, for example, if you're looking at tree equity, wonderful maps on tree equity, but I wanna see tree equity in redlined areas where there are no grocery stores and where there are ample amounts of liquor stores and where there is a high incidence of flooding and, lower economic conditions, or as one of my colleagues says, economic apartheid. And I want all that to tell the story because I believe in the power of storytelling. So if we could get, it doesn't, it's not gonna be one map, but a series of maps or a process where we can do that. And it's not gonna, as I said before, one of the main hindrances other than, because it seems to be a hard. Skill to learn is that it costs money to have someone else do it, and yet we don't know how to do it ourselves. And even teaching communities how to do it, you know how the simplest way to do it would be phenomenal. You know, a series of workshops might be the call to action. That might be the call to action for North Star to, see which resources we can bring to Bear to do some skills transfer, right? Yeah. Like train the trainer, you know? If you train five community members, then they can train others and how to do this and on and on and on. So it's an ongoing, process that is self-sustaining. And it's impactful. That's the second thing. And the most important thing that everybody said, the impact of mapping and how important it is for the work that they do. And each one talked about a different issue, which tells you that it is something that is needed across the board. And I know in all the different spaces that I've been in, even right now, I'm working with the group on what used to be the first National Nature assessment. But of course that was this administration has put an end to that, but we're doing some things. How wonderful it would be if we had a lot of things that were already mapped instead of having to individually look for these things. You know? Uh, because I did so much work with federal health agencies. I think there are some parallels here. One of the things that I saw in working with the health agencies was how. Approaches to issues are very siloed and data is siloed. So you'd have a team working on tobacco, you'd have another team working on infant mortality. You'd have another team working on cancer. But when you overlay, which is what I think I hear you talking about when you overlay the incidences of. These things and look at them holistically. Um, betting that the same thing that you'll see when you look at health disparities and health equity is going to be the same things that you see when you're looking at environmental justice that the communities. That don't have ample green space are the same amp communities that are now being forced to have data centers in their backyards or having pipelines running through their neighborhoods. So they are not just impacted by that one thing, but they are, you know, doubly or triply or quadruple impacted and those, it's cumulative. Yep. Yeah. And not just additive, those things become multiplicative when you think about health concerns as well as, and health and. Environmental justice. We can't speak about one without the other. And for those listening, there will be, I promise you there's gonna be another quarter when we talk just about GIS and Health. But this quarter, January, February and March of 2026, we're going to be speaking specifically about GIS and how, um, it is leveraged by the environmental justice community. The other thing I'm gonna say it, she's not gonna like hearing it, but Dr. Hollis is literally one of the most modest people I have ever met. And it's crazy because she knows so many people has done so much good work. And I was present when Dr. Hollis received the William K. Riley Award in 2025. And one of the things that came out of that award. Presentation for me was an awareness that Dr. Hollis. Maneuvers with leadership in the environmental justice community, but she's also bringing along students and younger people behind her and helping to plant seeds and develop the environmental justice leaders of the future. And there were many people in the audience who, between applauding and laughing, there were some tears shed because of the. Heartfelt love and affection from your students and the people who came up to speak about the roles that you have played with some of your mentees. So there, Dr. Hollis, I've said it, you are all that mentor, but can you talk a little bit about the work that you are doing to groom the people who are gonna be the Dr. Hollis of the future? Yes I would love to talk about it. First of all, I don't mentor people. You know, we always argue about, they don't agree with me either, and the reason for that is because people always say, how did you get to where you are? Like what path did you take? And I don't like that question because I don't think that there should be paths. I think you do. What makes sense to you? I went to law school long after I had gotten my PhD, because I asked the EJ community, what they needed, and they said, we need people who look like us to help explain the legal ramifications of whatever this is. And so the people who are even in my program who are younger on the EJ team, I wrote about this, I just published it recently too. I was just talking about this on LinkedIn that, it gives me hope because I talked with one staffer in my program two days ago, and she said, I just wanna know how I can do more or how I can be more impactful. And I just immediately thought, that's what we want. That's the attitude because these folks are the. Leaders of the future. They are, because we have a lot of work to do, we get a lot of things to repair. A lot of things have been destroyed. Time is up. We have to start fixing things and repairing things, and we can't do it. You know, fresh, new, young voices, new ideas, all of that. I try to encourage that, you know, and it doesn't always work, but for the most part, people want to be challenged to think through processes to make things better. Now when the problem with that, Erica, is when you have folks who say. Well, y'all haven't done anything, so we're gonna come and change it and we're gonna do it right. I don't think that's the right approach. For one thing, you know, there are people who have been doing this work longer than I have, and I still learn from them. And I learn from people who haven't been doing it as long as I have. And I learn from people who are new to this. And you have to always be open to that and to, to me, the, because I'm still stuck on collaboration and partnership, the information, the experiences, the mistakes that were made the successes that were had in the past are part of the roadmap for the younger generation, the new generation to use. So you already know what not to do, right? So that you can, the time between trying and succeeding should be shorter because we already know what not to do. We've done, as I said, we danced this dance before. And that's what I tell my, my, you know, the, the younger folks, I don't say mentees 'cause mm-hmm. And I tell them, and this is, I really believe this environmental justice work, whether it's advocacy or activism, whatever you wanna call it, it is not a job. It's a calling. You've got to really believe in it and believe in the need to address the injustices because it's not a place you're gonna become rich, trust me. But it is a place where you can have impact. And to me that's more important. 'cause when you look back on your life, that's what you want. You know, that's what you want is to, I wanna say I fixed one thing, uh, I am a black woman. And in my career there have certainly been obstacles and challenges. Can you give me some things that you have found challenging? Oh yeah, I'll quickly. Um, and now when I, I did my PhD at Meharry Medical College and I did my postdoc work at Harvard. Right. And, uh, my first day at Harvard in Boston, I was making animal food a diet, 'cause I was doing an experiment. And so I had a big garbage bag. And as most students I had on jeans and a t-shirt. I was dragging this huge bag of, rat diet that I had made up. And this guy who happened to be a white guy yelled from down the hall, you forgot to empty my garbage. And I had just gotten my PhD and for some reason I thought that would make things different. I don't know why I am from the south. I should have known better. He said that to me and he was angry and I calmly walked back down the hall and I told him, you obviously have me confused. My name is Dr. Adrian Hollis, and he was so apologetic, but at that point, of course the damage had been done, but whenever I saw him in the hallway, he would speak. Thing is he shouldn't speak to anybody like that, whether they're, Dr. Hollis or the janitor, you know, there's a respectful way to speak to a human being and, and we should all be accorded that degree of respect. Yeah. You know, it's not always race too, because family, when I decided to go to law school, people did call me and was like, what are you thinking? You already have a job, you have a house. Why would you do this? You're not thinking clearly and whatever. And of course, because I believe in charting your own path, I was like, thank you so much for calling. It's so good to hear from you after 10 years. I appreciate that, you know, but I went on to do what I felt needed to be done, so. You get challenges from everybody and I'm sure you could attest to that. What do they say? What doesn't kill us, makes us stronger. Yeah. So what are you most hopeful about as you think about, say, a post this administration time, or the work that you're doing at the National Wildlife Federation? What are you most hopeful about? I think I'm most hopeful The fact that, but for this bump in the road, we were on the path to addressing environmental injustices. Although it has taken a long time, as I said, way before I got involved, I'm hopeful that it won't take us long. Because we know that path too. Right? And so I wanna skip, I want us to, as you do in the book, skip pages. Let's go. We don't need to go into chapter three. Let's go on to chapter 16. And I'm hopeful that everybody has, just as with Chris with the hurricane right? We learned you should learn. I'm hopeful that we have learned from our past, that people have learned from their past. We, like, we learned from that to take care of our healthcare folks and to take care of those who need healthcare first. Like people in nursing homes and the like. We learned that also in COVID. So obviously we didn't learn it in, Katrina. But I'm hopeful that somebody's going to document the lessons learned. During these four years of, of whatever you wanna call it you know, because we should never be here again. Because at the end of the day, there are no, there are no groups, races, populations of people that are any less worthy of being safe and healthy than any other. And until we lose that, those of us who carry that sense of gosh, what is it a sense of you owe me, you know, I'm better than, we're not gonna see that. And so I'm hopeful that that lesson has been learned that nobody's better than anybody else, whether you have money or not. Yeah. Because it's not what you do. There are people who make the greatest impact and have no money. Look at Mother Teresa. So that's what I'm hopeful about. I'm hopeful about the good in people and that the good is going to overshadow the bad. And we're gonna get on track and there's not gonna be so much hatred and no need for open carry and school shootings and neighborhood shootings and road rage and all the things. That's a lot. But it's, there is a lot to be hopeful for and hopeful about. You know, when I think about all of the people that we invited to participate in these. Discussions for the North Star Gaze, I get excited and a bit hopeful about that. So, in addition to Rashida Ferdinand, we spoke with Dr. Khalil Shahid, um, Mustafa, Santiago. Ali, um, Michael and Maya. Maria Payon. So I, I join you in your optimism and the opportunities for the future. And what you all in the North Star Gaze Podcast are going to hear over the weeks ahead are conversations with just a tremendous array of people, Michael and Maria Payan, Dr. Khalil Shahid, Cole Mustafa, Santiago Ali and Rashida Ferdinand. And you're going to hear voices. That each have something unique and interesting to say about inter environmental justice and its intersection with GIS. And on that note I can't say it enough. I'm delighted to have this time with you, Dr. Hollis, thank you so much for all the time and work and effort that you've put into bringing us uh, what is going to be a stellar first quarter of North Star Gay season three. Thank you. Thank you so much, Erica. Thanks for listening to the North Star Gaze, intimate stories from geo luminaries. If you're inspired to advance racial justice in geo fields, please share this podcast with other listeners in your community. The intro and outro, or produced by Organized Sound Productions with original music created by Kid Bodega. The North Star Gaze is produced in large part by donations and sponsorship. To learn more about North Star of Gs, check us out at north star of gis.org and on Facebook or Instagram at GIS North Star. If you'd like to support this podcast on North Star of gis, consider donating at North star of gis.org/donate or to sponsor this podcast. Email podcast at north star of gis.org. You've been listening to the North Star Gaze.