Natalie Sampson, Ph.D.

Natalie Sampson, PhD, MPH, is an Associate Professor of Public Health at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. She has served in many leadership roles in the field of environmental health at the local and national level, including with the American Public Health Association, Community Action to Promote Healthy Environments, Environmental Health Research-to-Action, the Michigan Center on Lifestage Environmental Exposures and Disease, and the National Council for Environmental Health and Equity. Dr. Sampson works to democratize environmental health science and policymaking in an effort to improve environmental health for all. She gets to do this work in partnership with brilliant leaders, including longtime community organizers, activists, youth, students, agency partners, educators, and researchers. As a faculty member, she primarily teaches courses on environmental health and community organizing and enjoys engaging in active, practice-based learning with her students throughout Metro Detroit. 

Ph.D. in Health Behavior Health Education, University of Michigan

M.P.H. in Health Promotion, Portland State University

B.S. in Environmental Studies, University of Michigan

Textbook: Sampson, N., Tallon, L., & DeJarnett, N. (ed.s). (2025). Environmental Health: Foundations for Public Health. Springer Publishing.

* indicates student co-author

1. Price, C., Landrum, T., Sampson, N., Jones, J.,* Daniels, L., Elhagehassan, Y.,* Garcia, R., Luqman, S., Gatling, J.,* & Gutierrez, M. (2025). Legendary Women of Environmental Justice in Metro Detroit: A Report from a Historic Community Event Hosted on July 8, 2023. Environmental Justice.
2. Sampson, N., Price, C., Amaleky, A.,* Reda, Z.,* & Reda, Y.* (2024). Lessons from the Environmental Health Research-to-Action Youth Academy. Environmental Justice, https://doi.org/10.1089/env.2024.004.
3. Sampson, N., Price, C., Bradshaw, M.,* Freeman, B.,* & Sampson, M.  (2024). Lessons from a Plain Language Analysis: U.S. Clean Air Act Title V Public Notices as Barriers to Environmental Justice. Environmental Science and Policy, 151. doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2023.103604.
4. Gearhart, J., Xia, T. Mohammed, K., Shim, A., Seo, S., Cooper Sargent, M. Sampson, N., Napieralski, J., Sagovac, S., Batterman, S. (2023). Fugitive dust is not just windblown soil – Impact of scrap metal processing in an environmental justice community, Environments,10 (12), 223. doi.org/10.3390/environments10120223.
5. Sampson, N., Sampson, M., Price, C., Almuktar, S.,* Bashi, A., & Luqman, S. (2022). Plain language as a prerequisite for environmental justice. Environmental Justice. doi.org/ 10.1089/env.2021.0108.
6. MacIver, L., * London, J., Sampson, N., Gordon, M., Grow, R., Akaba, A., & Eady, V. (2022) Owning Our Air: Lessons from West Oakland’s engagement with AB 617 for addressing structural environmental racism. American Journal of Public Health, 112:262-270. doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2021.306592.
7. Larson, P.S., Gronlund, C., Thompson, L., Sampson, N., Washington Rodriguez, R., Steis, J., Lyon, N., & Miller, N. (2021). Recurrent home flooding in Detroit, MI 2012-2020: Results of a household level survey. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(14):7659. doi: 10.3390/ijerph18147659.
8. Sampson, N., Price, C., Alwishah, K.,* Saleh, I.,* Mahdi, A., Mozip, A., Luqman, S., Archambault, D., Gleicher, S., Norwood, D., Almaklani A.B., Leonard, N, Arouche, A., Tariq, M., Reda, Z. (2021). Building youth capacity to address environmental health and justice concerns in Dearborn, MI. Progress in Community Health Partnerships: Research, Education, and Action, 15(3):401-410. doi.org/10.1353/cpr.2021.0041.
9. Schulz, A.J., Omari, A.,* Ward, M.,* Mentz, G., DeMajo, R., Sampson, N., Israel, B.A., Reyes, A. & Wilkins, D. (2020). Independent and joint contributions of economic, social and physical environmental characteristics to mortality in the Detroit Metropolitan Area: A study of cumulative effects. Health and Place, 65:102391. doi.org/10.1016/j.healthplace.2020.102391.
10. Sampson, N., Sagovac, S., Schulz, A., Mentz, G., DeMajo, R., Reyes, A., Vial, B., Gamboa, C. Fink, L., & Rice, K. (2020). Mobilizing for community benefits to assess health and promote environmental justice near the Gordie Howe International Bridge. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17(13), 4680. doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17134680.