Besides spending time with family, friends, and students, and doing environmental-science and environmental-justice research, Kristin enjoys ice skating, scuba diving, and mountain hiking. The photos show two of her favorite spots. On the left is a shot in the Florida Keys. On the right is a shot from a southern California coastal-mountain trail.
Dr. Kristin Shrader-Frechette held senior professorships at the University of California and the University of Florida. She is now O’Neill Family Professor Emerita, Department of Biological Sciences and Department of Philosophy (Doctoral Program in Philosophy of Science) at the University of Notre Dame. She has mainly taught courses on Environmental Justice (EJ), Environmental Science, Public-Health Risks, Science and Ethics, and Quantitative Risk Assessment.
From Notre Dame, she directed the Center for Environmental Justice and Children’s Health until 2019. It is dedicated to conducting pro-bono scientific research at the request of poor or minority communities impacted by disproportionate levels of environmental pollution. (Along with Dr. Shrader-Frechette, the center recently relocated to Los Angeles.)
Kristin studied physics at Xavier University and graduated summa cum laude, with an undergraduate major in mathematics from Edgecliff College, Xavier University. When she received her PhD in philosophy of science from University of Notre Dame, her doctoral dissertation was on modeling in information theory, a branch of probability and statistics. As she began her career in environmental sciences, she completed three successive US National Science Foundation-funded post-docs, for 3, 1, and 2 years, respectively, in biology, economics, and hydrogeology. She has held Woodrow Wilson, National Science Foundation (NSF), and Carnegie Fellowships and has held offices/served on committees in the US National Academy of Sciences, the Risk Assessment and Policy Association, and the Philosophy of Science Association. Shrader-Frechette has been a member of many international and national boards and committees, including of the International Commission on Radiological Protection, US Environmental Protection Agency, National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurement, and the US National Academy of Sciences, including its Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology, its Committee on Risk Characterization, and its Committee on Zinc-Cadmium-Sulfide Dispersions.
In 2004 Shrader-Frechette became only the third American to win the World Technology Award in Ethics. Earlier a Harvard professor received it for his biomedical-ethics research, and a Princeton professor, for his development-ethics scholarship. She won for her research on environmental justice and public-health ethics. In 2007, Catholic Digest named her one of 12 “Heroes for the US and the World” because of her decades of pro-bono environmental-justice scientific work to protect those harmed by disproportionate or illegal pollution. In 2011, Tufts University gave her the Jean Mayer Global Citizenship Award, again because of her public-health and environmental-justice research and her pro-bono scientific assistance to environmental-justice communities. In 2023, she won the International COSMOS Prize, given annually to a globally recognized environmental researcher; she won for the prize for her research on environmental justice (EJ).
Formerly Associate Editor of BioScience, for decades Shrader-Frechette was also Editor-in-Chief of the Oxford University Press book series on Environmental and Science Policy. She spent two terms on the US EPA Science Advisory Board and serves on the editorial boards of 23 professional journals. She also was the first female president of three international professional societies: the Risk Assessment and Policy Association, the Society for Philosophy and Technology, and the International Society for Environmental Ethics.
The US National Science Foundation (NSF) funded Shrader-Frechette’s highly competitive research for 28 years, but the US Department of Energy, and the US National Endowment for the Humanities, also funded some work. Recently she finished research as PI on a $224,000 NSF grant on ethical/policy issues associated with worker exposure to ionizing radiation; as PI on another NSF grant on methodological problems in epidemiological statistics; and as project-team member for a $ 3-million NSF grant, “Global Linkages of Biology, Environment, Society.”
Most of Shrader-Frechette’s research falls into three main areas: (1) methods of quantitative risk assessment, (2) quantitative risk assessment of commercial nuclear fission and radioactive- and toxic-waste management, and (3) environmental-justice assessment (examining how blue-collar workers, children, future generations, minorities, and poor people bear disproportionate, pollution-caused risk and health burdens). An enthusiastic teacher, Kristin has also won the annual university-wide award for “Outstanding Teacher.”
Shrader-Frechette has published 17 books: Nuclear Power and Public Policy (1980, 1983); Environmental Ethics (1981, 1991); Four Methodological Assumptions in Cost-Benefit Analysis (1983); Science Policy, Ethics, and Economic Methodology (1984); Risk Analysis and Scientific Method (1985); Nuclear Energy and Ethics (1991); Risk and Rationality (1991); Policy for Land (1992); Burying Uncertainty: Risk and the Case Against Geological Disposal of Nuclear Waste (1993); Method in Ecology (1993); The Ethics of Scientific Research (1994), Technology and Human Values (1996), Environmental Justice: Creating Equality, Reclaiming Democracy (2002), Taking Action, Saving Lives: Our Duties to Protect Environmental and Public Health (2007), What Will Work: Fighting Climate Change with Renewable Energy, Not Nuclear Power (2011), and Tainted: How Philosophy of Science Can Expose Bad Science (2014).
She also has published more than 400 professional-journal articles. Her scientific analyses and experimental results have appeared in journals such as Science, BioScience, Health Physics, Journal of Radiation Protection, Conservation Biology, Quarterly Review of Biology, OIKOS, and Trends in Ecology and Evolution. Her work on scientific methods and ethics of science has appeared in philosophical journals such as Ethics, Journal of Philosophy, Philosophy of Science, and Synthese. In addition she has published in more applied journals such as Modern Energy Review, Energy Policy Studies, IEEE Spectrum, and IEEE Technology and Society.
Shrader-Frechette’s books and articles have been translated into 13 languages: Chinese, Czech, Dutch, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Russian, and Spanish. Because of her many books, scientific articles, and federal research grants on toxic/hazardous wastes she has served as an invited consultant to many nations, including the US, on hazardous-waste-site cleanup and management.
Widely requested as a lecturer by university, government, and industrial groups in the Americas, Asia, Europe, China, India, Africa, and Russia, Shrader-Frechette has been invited to address the National Academies of Science in three countries. She also has served as an advisor to numerous governments and international organizations, including the United Nations and the World Health Organization.
Kristin and her husband Maurice, a PhD mathematician, have two children, Danielle and Eric, both US National Merit Scholarship winners, both honors graduates of Princeton University. Danielle is a Northwestern University Law graduate, practicing law in Los Angeles, and Eric is a University of California MD/PhD who is practicing neurology in Los Angeles County. During her free time, Kristin enjoys ice skating, scuba diving, and mountain hiking. She continues scientific research and pro-bono EJ work, now mostly in the US.