Augusta Williams

Augusta Williams, ScD, MPH is an environmental health scientist with over 10 years of experience at the intersection of public health and climate change. She is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Public Health and Preventive Medicine at the State University of New York (SUNY) Upstate Medical University. She was previously a Health Scientist for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration in the Directorate of Standards and Guidance where she was involved in several high-profile rulemaking activities, including serving as the technical lead for the agency’s hazardous heat regulatory portfolio. In 2019, Augusta was selected as a Christine Mirzayan Science and Technology Policy Fellow by the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine. Augusta received her Doctor of Science (ScD) and post-doctoral training at the Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health and her Master of Public Health from Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, all in environmental health. She attended Hobart and William Smith Colleges where she received her Bachelor of Science in both Biology and Geoscience with an atmospheric science concentration. Across her work and educational experiences, Augusta’s applied research interests have examined the public health and built environment impacts of hazardous heat, precipitation extremes, and severe weather events, as well as informing climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies to protect and promote public health from the scale of a single residential home all the way to a national level. She recently returned to Upstate New York, where she is originally from, and currently resides in Syracuse, NY.