Our valued partners.

The Envirome Institute enables and supports research on the effects of the environment on health and promotes an understanding of environmental health issues locally and globally. Using the city of Louisville as an urban laboratory, the Envirome Institute will study how social, physical, and geographic features of the environment affect human health. The Envirome Institute is the organizing body for transdisciplinary research centers across the University of Louisville, such as the Center for Healthy Air, Water, and Soil, the Center for Diabetes and Obesity Research, the Superfund Research Program, and others. Our team of researchers examines how environmental differences within Louisville cause health disparities and how personal environments created by lifestyle choices affect a person’s health and well-being.

Using a multidisciplinary and collaborative approach to research, the Center for Diabetes and Obesity Research efforts range from cardiovascular metabolism and inflammation to stem cell biology and environmental cardiology. Our collaborative approach to research yields dynamic results. Our team’s discoveries bring us closer to uncovering effective strategies to prevent, treat, and manage chronic disease.

The Center for Healthy Air, Water, and Soil has a unique focus on the natural environment and modifications to that natural environment which then become parts of the social environment. For example, the generation and transportation of energy or transportation is the creation of the built environment and it changes the natural, physical environment in ways that can both improve and diminish health. Building on the Envirome Institute’s scholarly legacy in establishing the field of environmental cardiology, the Center for Healthy Air, Water, and Soil’s work highlights the connections between individuals, communities, and the fundamental, environmental determinants of health.

The goals of the Superfund Research Center are to evaluate the health impact of volatile organic chemicals present in the environment and understand how exposure to such chemicals could contribute to the risk and development of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease, which, despite recent medical advances, remain the leading causes of death worldwide. Center investigators will conduct research to unravel critical pathways of toxicity and identify health outcomes from chemicals found at Superfund and related sites. In addition, center investigators will create new technologies for detecting VOCs at low environmental levels. The findings and discoveries of the center will be shared with affected communities, end users in public and private sectors, and other stakeholders.

The Nature Conservancy stands for nature, in all its diversity. We envision a world where the diversity of life thrives, and people act to conserve nature for its own sake and its ability to fulfill our needs and enrich our lives. The Nature Conservancy is focused on contributing to the sustainability of urban ecosystems that sit at the crowded nexus of the natural world, the built environment, human culture, and communities. We exist to improve the lived experience of urban species – humans and others – in the places they call home and to protect their right to continue to thrive in these places.

The McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis promotes independent inquiry in engineering research and education. WashU engineers produce new knowledge that changes the world, and explore and create a world we cannot yet imagine. The WashU scientists participating in Green Heart more broadly focus on air quality characterization and management with an emphasis on field measurements and data analysis to support applications in atmospheric science, regulation, policy, and health studies.

The research and development (R&D) arm of the Forest Service, a component of the US Department of Agriculture, works at the forefront of science to improve the health and use of our nation’s forests and grasslands. Research has been part of the Forest Service’s mission since the agency’s inception in 1905.