Veena Singla is a Senior Scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council and Adjunct Assistant professor at Columbia University. Her work seeks to address health disparities linked to harmful environmental exposures using an interdisciplinary approach incorporating environmental health, exposure science, public health, and policy expertise. Her research investigates how toxic chemicals and pollution related to systems of materials use, production, and disposal threaten the health of impacted communities.
Veena specializes in the communication of complex scientific information at the intersection of research and policy and has testified to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the Alaska state legislature, and the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. She currently serves on the US EPA’s Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee, the National Toxicology Program Board of Scientific Counselors, the Board of Directors for Clean Production Action, and as Associate Director for the Agents of Change in Environmental Justice Program.
Veena previously was the Associate Director of Science and Policy at the Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). She completed a postdoctoral teaching fellowship at Stanford University and was an adjunct faculty member at the University of San Francisco. She holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Berkeley, and a PhD in cell biology from UCSF.