Dr. Yolanda McDonald (she/her) conducts interdisciplinary research to explore how social determinants of health influence the built environment, health inequities and outcomes associated with climate change. Her drinking water-related research has two major lines of inquiry that use environmental justice for understanding the state of public drinking water and its connection to environmental health: (1) to characterize the US drinking water landscape and (2) to examine associations between exposure to non-microorganism sources in contaminated water and chronic illnesses. McDonald founded the Vanderbilt University Drinking Water Justice Lab to create critical spatial data to assess drinking water injustice and health outcomes at local levels. The DWJL, in collaboration with the Tennessee Department of Health, Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, and the Tennessee Association of Utility, constructed a geospatial database of the service area boundary of Tennessee water systems and a state-wide survey to assess the drinking water industry front-line employees’ perceptions of their water system’s technical and financial capacity. She is passionate about mentoring students and providing them opportunities to deepen their understanding of applied research. McDonald earned her M.A. in Sociology from the University of Texas at El Paso, focusing on health outcomes associated with lack of access to a public water supply in Colonias. She earned her Ph.D. in Geography from Texas A&M University, focusing on health inequities associated with accessibility to preventive cervical cancer healthcare services in New Mexico. She is a Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellow and a National Institutes of Health, Health Disparities Research Institute Scholar. Return to The Coordinating Team