"I strive to ensure environmental health and safety for both farmers and their communities."

Remy Mink is on a mission to address environmental health hazards in the workplace and generate sustainable communities globally. Remy earned her bachelor’s degree in integrative biology and physiology at UCLA and eventually went on to live and work on a tropical fruit farm on Maui, Hawaii, where she saw that many farmers lacked basic healthcare, occupational safety services, and understanding of the adverse effects of pesticides. The experience motivated Remy to study the neurotoxic effects of various pesticides and help improve conditions for workers.

In 2021, Remy earned admission to U-M’s School of Public Health, and she is now investigating the neurotoxic effects of insecticides in the farmers of Northern Thailand as an industrial hygiene intern at Mae Fah Luang University. Remy is specifically looking at farmers’ acetylcholinesterase (AChE) activity, which could potentially indicate insecticide exposure before any chronic or serious related health outcomes manifest, and the effectiveness of work safety protocols like PPE enforcement and mandatory pesticide safety training.

Remy says, “As a future global public health professional and industrial hygienist with work experience in an agricultural setting, I strive to ensure environmental health and safety for both farmers and their communities.” She is committed to taking an intersectional approach to providing care to international communities and she is earning a certificate in professional diversity, equity, and inclusion. By clearly relating practices and mechanisms of exposure to the chronic health effects they produce, Remy hopes to promote safer working conditions for farming communities.

Recognized as a “hard-working, talented, and extremely promising student,” Remy is also a U-M School of Public Health scholarship recipient, a National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health Education and Research Center Fellow, and Vice President of the U-M Industrial Hygiene Students Association.

CEW+ celebrates Remy’s vision for healthy, sustainable communities and names her a Menakka and Essel Bailey Graduate Fellow.