The WWOSH Team – Workplace Health Without Borders

WWOSH Team

The WWOSH Team are an international group of academic researchers and actvists devoted to improving the occupational health of waste workers and publicizing the contribution that these workers make to reducing our carbon footprints through their recycling efforts.

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Vanessa Cruvinel

PhD, MSc, Professor of epidemiology, University of Brasilia, Brazil since 2012. Coordinator of Extension and Research Project “Stop, think, disposal: Health conditions and occupational risks of garbage collectors,” since 2013.

Visiting professor at University of Toronto, Dalla Lana School of Public Health in 2018.

Co-chair of the WHWB International Waste-Workers-Occupational-Safety-Health (WWOSH) Committee.

Sonia Maria Dias

Sonia Dias, PhD is a global waste specialist for Women in Informal Employment Globalizing and Organizing – WIEGO. Her work is focused on the intersections of waste and citizenship rights, including gender, human rights, decent work conditions, public policies.

Dayani Galato

Dayani Galato is a pharmacist and professor at Brasilia University, acting in the Pharmacy Course and Postgraduate Program in Health Sciences and Technologies of the Faculty of Ceilândia.

Jutta Gutberlet

Jutta is professor in Geography and director - Community-Based Research Laboratory at the University of Victoria. She has a PhD from the University of Tübingen and previously worked at the University of Newcastle, Australia. Her research is focused on transversal socioeconomic, cultural, political and environmental waste related challenges. Specifically, governance and sustainability questions in the context of worker lives in global South cities.

Susan Gunn

PhD, MPH (Univ. California-Berkeley) Medical Anthropologist. Senior Technical Specialist (ret'd), International Labour Organization, specializing in occupational health of children and young workers.

Researcher on psychological impacts of work on young people; Consultant on methodologies for assessing children's occupational risks and impacts.

Tara Rava Zolnikov

Dr. Zolnikov focuses on aspects of culture in global health. She has a Ph.D in Developmental Science from North Dakota State University, an M.S. (Environmental Health) from Harvard School of Public Health and a M.S. (Industrial Hygiene) from Montana Tech, U. Montana. Dr. Zolnikov’s primary research interest is global health issues in low and middle-income countries, including Kenya, Ghana, India, Colombia, and Brazil.

Lina Paola Escobar

Lina, a professional in Environmental Management, is now pursuing a Master’s degree at Universidad Nacional de Colombia. She has experience as coordinator of health, security, environment and quality’ bureau in Colombia, in the public and private sectors. She is pursuing a Master's degree at Universidad Nacional de Colombia and expects to soon begin her field work research “Health and working conditions of waste pickers in three associations in Bogotá city."

Gary W. Bangs

Gary Bangs is Clinical Industrial Hygienist for the Occupational Medicine Division of University of Washington. He was a Commissioned Officer in the US Public Health Service for 25 years. He worked in Indian Health Service clinics, providing occupational health services and consultation in the Pacific Northwest, and was a chemical risk assessor at the US EPA.

Mariel Umaña Rivas.

Physician from Costa Rica (Universidad de Ciencias Médicas). General practitioner for private industry offices in Costa Rica. Currently coursing her Masters Degree in Science and Technologies in Health at the University of Brasília (UnB), Brazil.

Member of the international Health and Safety Committee for Waste Pickers (WWOSH) since 2019. Member of the Extension Project Stop, Think, and Dispose at UnB.

Greice Martins

Greice Martins has an M.S in Molecular Pathology with emphasis in virology and health promotion, from the University of Brasilia. Since 2011, she has been working with environmental and health education. She is currently a professor at Instituto Federal de Brasília (IFB). Her research is focused on solid waste management, sustainable development and health promotion, especially among waste pickers. Greice is also a member of the environmental commission and the Zero Waste Group from IFB.

Keylia Pedroso

Brazilian, Environmental Engineer, Master in Urban Engineering, Since 2014, a full professor at the Federal Institute Farroupilha-IFFar in Engineering, Environment and Environmental Management. Crrently a doctoral student in Environmental Engineering at the Federal University of Santa Catarina - UFSC, with the Solid Waste Laboratory (LARESO) developing research on solid waste, selective collection, recycling, collectors, cooperatives and occupational health.

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