Jody A. Roberts

Director, Center for Contemporary History and Policy

E-mail: jroberts-at-chemheritage-dot-org
Phone: 215.873.8281
Fax: 215.629.5281

Roberts’s work explores the intersections of emerging molecular sciences and public policy and the ways in which tensions brought about between the two get resolved. He received advanced degrees in science and technology studies from Virginia Tech, where he cultivated an interest in the practice of the molecular sciences and the ways in which they are shaped by internal architecture and design (e.g., technologies of the laboratory) and the politics of the broader world (e.g., chemical regulations). Those interests became the basis for the projects that formed CHF’s Environmental History and Policy Program, which explores social, technical, and policy innovations for governing molecules. Before becoming the first manager of the Environmental History and Policy Program, he was the Charles C. Price Fellow and Gordon Cain Fellow at CHF. Roberts is a senior fellow in the Environmental Leadership Program. He also lectures in the History and Sociology of Science Department at the University of Pennsylvania and in the Center for Public Policy at Drexel University. Roberts holds an undergraduate degree in chemistry from Saint Vincent College.

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Active Projects

Select Publications

Vogel, Sarah A. and Jody A. Roberts. 2011. “Why the Toxic Substances Control Act Needs an Overhaul, And How to Strengthen Oversight of Chemicals I the Interim.” Health Affairs May, 30(5), pp. 898-905.
Roberts, Jody A. 2011. “Creating and Controlling Chemical Hazards: A Brief History.” Pp. 3-14 in Global Collaborations in Managing Chemical and Environmental Risks. Edited by Philip Wexler, Jan van der Kolk, Asish Mohapatra, and Ravi Agarwal. London and New York: CRC Press.
Roberts, Jody A. 2008. New Chemical Bodies: A Conversation on Human Biomonitoring and Endocrine-Disrupting Chemicals. Chemical Heritage Foundation, Philadelphia.
Choi, Hyungsub, Sarah Kaplan, and Cyrus C. M. Mody, and Jody A. Roberts. 2008. Setting an Agenda for the Social Studies of Nanotechnology: A Summary of the Joint Wharton–Chemical Heritage Foundation Symposium on the Social Studies of Nanotechnology. Wharton and Chemical Heritage Foundation, Philadelphia.

Select Presentations

2011 “Pollution Prevention and Toxics Reform: Past, Present, and Future.” Delivered at EPA Region 3, Philadelphia, PA (September).
2010 “From Inception to Reform: Unpacking the History of the Toxic Substances Control Act through Archives and Oral Histories.” [with Jessica Schifano]. Delivered at the AAAS (November).
2009 “What’s so scary about nano? Current Trajectories and future directions in exploring nanotoxicology.” Delivered at the AAAS (March).