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Sheila R. Foster is a Professor at Columbia University's Climate School and an affiliated faculty member at Columbia Law School.
Foster is well known for her articles and books on environmental and climate justice, land use, local government, and urban policy. These include From the Ground Up: Environmental Racism and the Rise of the Environmental Justice Movement (NYU Press) and the award-winning Co-Cities: Innovative Transitions Toward Just and Self-Sustaining Communities (MIT Press).
Throughout her career, Foster has worked with local communities, federal and state agencies, and public officials on a range of urban, environmental, and climate issues in disinvested and marginalized communities. She has worked in and with communities ranging from Camden, NJ; Chester, PA, Harlem, NY; Baton Rouge, LA; and South Los Angeles, CA.
From 2017-2020, she served as the chair of the advisory board for the Global Parliament of Mayors and since 2016 has been an appointed member of the New York City's Panel on Climate Change where she has focused on guiding its climate equity work. Foster is co-editor and a founding Advisory Board member of the Journal of Climate Resilience & Climate Justice.
Foster also co-directs LabGov, a ground-breaking platform that pioneered the award-winning Co-City approach applied in various cities around the world, helping to reorient cities toward more collaborative and place-based solutions to urban challenges.
PUBLICATIONS
Foster is a leading scholar of environmental and climate justice. Her work has been recognized by the IUCN Academy of Environmental Law with its 2018 Senior Scholarship Award. She was recently elected as a fellow to the American College of Environmental Lawyers. Her influential scholarship is published in top law journals like Yale, Berkeley, Harvard, Notre Dame and in books by NYU Press, MIT press, Cambridge University Press, and Oxford University Press.
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