Faculty Member Since 1997
Dr. Fatemeh Shafiei is the Director of the Environmental Studies; Associate Professor, Department of Political Science at Spelman College; and the Co-Chair of the Sustainable Committee at Spelman College. She was Chair of the Department of Political Science from 2012 to August 2021. She served as a member (2012-2018) of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) National Environmental Justice Advisory Council (NEJAC), the Federal Advisory Committee that advises the EPA on environmental justice issues. She is a member of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ (ACE) Environmental Advisory Board (EAB), a permanent subcommittee of the U.S. Army Science Board. She is also the Co-founder and Co-Leader of Greater Atlanta Regional Centre of Expertise (RCE) which the United Nations University Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability (UNU-IAS) acknowledged as sixth in the U.S. and 164th in the world on Education for Sustainable Development.
Dr. Shafiei has published in the areas of public policy, environmental justice, environmental policy, environmental determinants of health disparities and environmental education. She has served as an invited keynote speaker, keynote listener, panelist, chair, section chair, panel organizer, moderator, and discussant in numerous conferences and forums.
Dr. Shafiei has been an expert/leader in advancing integration of sustainability into curricula for decades. environmental justice for decades. She has hosted and directed many projects such as “Toxic Release Inventory Regional Workshop,” and “Environmental Justice Summit,” among others.
Dr. Shafiei is the recipient of the 2023 Fanie Lou Hamer Outstanding Community Service Award, the 2023 Distinguished Service Award, and the 2020 Distinguished Service Award all from the National Conference of Black Political Scientists (NCOBPS). She is also the recipient of “Environmental Justice Pioneer Award,” from Citizens for Environmental Justice.