2017 National Fellow Leif Fredrickson receives award for writing the nation's top humanities dissertation
A few months after earning his Ph.D this spring, National Fellow Leif Fredrickson has earned an award that distinguishes his dissertation as one of the top in the country. Last week he was named the 2017 recipient of the Council of Graduate Schools/ProQuest Distinguished Dissertation Award in Humanities and Fine Arts.
Leif’s award-winning dissertation, entitled “The Age of Lead: Metropolitan Change, Environmental Health, and Inner City Underdevelopment”, sets out to answer two questions. First, how did twentieth-century metropolitan development affect lead exposure? And second, how did lead exposure affect individuals, communities, and governments in the metropolis? Leif examines how policies and markets came together to impact energy, housing, and transportation infrastructures, leading to increased and often disproportionate exposure from lead in sources such as paint, gasoline and batteries. He also examines how lead affected education, income, medical expenses, and other social outcomes for individuals, families, and communities.
Read more about the award and Leif’s dissertation here. Read the announcement in UVA Today here.
