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 studies 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 Cardiometabolic Science; 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 wellbeing.

The Center for Cardiometabolic Science houses the greatest concentration of cardiovascular investigators at the University of Louisville and has a history of excellence in integrative studies of cardiovascular function. The Center’s investigators have expertise in the metabolic, immunologic, toxicologic, and fibrotic causes and consequences of cardiovascular health and disease. With a suite of modern instrumentation and highly specialized services, we support investigators in our Center, on our campus, and more broadly, the scientific community.

The Center for Healthy Air, Water, and Soil (CHAWS) at the Christina Lee Brown Envirome Institute builds on pioneering work in environmental cardiology by exploring how the built and natural environments shape health outcomes. Using a multidimensional framework, CHAWS supports environmental research projects that emphasize the interrelationships between human health and place, with a focus on air, water, and soil quality. The Center is actively involved in community-facing projects that connect local residents to research, revealing the environmental determinants of health that influence conditions like asthma, COPD, and cardiovascular disease. Through this work, CHAWS aims to increase understanding of how fundamental ecology contributes to human health, wellbeing, or disease.

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.

Hyphae Design Laboratory is a mission-driven engineering firm that bridges the gap between health and the built environment. Hyphae collaborates with communities, companies, cities, and scientists to create healthy connected communities through innovative research, engineering, and design partnerships