Devon Payne-Sturges, DrPH

Devon Payne-Sturges, DrPH, is an Associate Professor with the Department of Global, Environmental, and Occupational Health at the University of Maryland, School of Public Health. She also holds a joint appointment in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics and with the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at University of Maryland Baltimore School of Medicine. Prior to joining the faculty at the University of Maryland (UMD), Payne-Sturges served as Assistant Commissioner for Environmental Health with the Baltimore City Health Department and later as the Assistant Center Director for Human Health with the United States EPA’s National Center for Environmental Research, where she focused on biomonitoring for policy analysis, cumulative risk assessment, health impact assessment, environmental health indicator development, children’s environmental health, and environmental health of minority populations.

She has worked with numerous stakeholders, including relevant state and federal agencies and NGOs in the fields of environmental and occupational health. Her research focuses on racial and economic disparities in exposures to environmental contaminants and associated health risks with the aim of improving the science our society uses to make decisions about environmental policies that impact the health of communities and populations, especially vulnerable, low income, and minority populations. She is currently conducting research applying systems modeling to better understand the links between structural racism, cumulative environmental exposures, and neurodevelopment health outcomes among children, and respiratory health outcomes among migrant farmworkers.

Dr. Payne-Sturges’ research has been supported with funding from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (K01 and R01), Environmental Defense Fund, Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, and UMD’s VPR. Dr. Payne-Sturges earned her MPH and DrPH degrees in environmental health sciences from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.