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Johnnye Lewis, PhD, has received the 2021 SOT Public Communications Award in recognition of her decades-long record of building innovative programs that blend environmental health research with robust public communication strategies, particularly among Native American populations exposed to toxic legacy mine wastes.

Dr. Lewis received her PhD in pharmacology from the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, in 1989, thereafter evolving her early career experience as a toxicologist to become a profoundly impactful community health researcher. Currently a Professor in the College of Pharmacy at the University of New Mexico, Dr. Lewis founded and directs the University of New Mexico Community Environmental Health Program and is the primary investigator of three Center grants: a P42 Superfund Center from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, a P50 Environmental Health Disparities Center from the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, and a UG3/UH3 Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes Program cohort site from the National Institutes of Health Office of the Director.

Dr. Lewis’s career has focused on addressing major environmental health disparities that adversely impact the indigenous people of the United States. Over the years and through steadfast dialogue with community members and tribal leadership, she has built a network that has enabled research- and science-based change. Her innovative communication efforts have engaged various stakeholders in discussions of risks and prioritization of about 500 abandoned uranium mine sites on the Navajo Nation. She has been an engaged voice—and ear—for underserved communities for decades, traveling thousands of miles throughout the western United States and abroad to meet with and hear the concerns of disaffected populations. She recognized long ago that major gaps in scientific communication existed between the Western world and Native communities, and she heard communities’ mistrust of scientists and discomfort with Western medicine that belittled traditional healing and indigenous knowledge.

To address these multifaceted problems, Dr. Lewis has worked to change conventional academic approaches to better privilege indigenous knowledge and appreciate the deep cultural understanding of the relationship between humans and their natural environment. She built teams of talented researchers who also committed to developing cultural competencies acquired from years of work in tribal communities and launched a two-decade commitment to bringing young Native scientists into the university community. These innovations, which challenged long-held academic norms, resulted in better communication with tribal communities. They improved the ability to engage Native American communities to conduct essential research with and among families who still live near toxic, abandoned mine sites and whose lands, crops, and livestock were contaminated, posing threats to community health. By building diverse research teams with cultural knowledge, Dr. Lewis enabled an environment for sharing and understanding science. Furthermore, she observed that translating environmental health findings was inhibited among older Native Americans who spoke only their Native language, so most of the programs Dr. Lewis built include Navajo, Keres, Tewa, Towa, Zuni, or Sioux speakers as appropriate to further translation of both culture and language.

In addition, Dr. Lewis has developed innovative strategies for communication, including the inclusion of a local Zuni Pueblo artist to help explain concepts of Western science—like immunology or DNA damage—in a manner that applies Native symbolism for visuals. Beyond the heavy metal issues caused by abandoned mine sites, this resource has been vital in the campaign against COVID-19, with many communication strategies helping to explain the needs for face masks, hand washing, and social distancing.

Dr. Lewis has been an SOT member since 1994, is a frequently invited presenter at national scientific conferences, and has contributed invited policy testimony on the US state and national levels.