Riverkeeper looks forward to honoring Dr. David O. Carpenter with our 2023 Hudson Hero Award at our Summer Splash event at Boscobel House and Gardens on Thursday, June 8. At this annual celebration of activists and heroes fighting for the Hudson, we will spotlight Carpenter’s accomplishments as a public health physician who has spent his career researching the impacts of pollutants on the brain, particularly PCBs and their effect on IQ – and speaking out on the findings.

Visit this page to learn more about Riverkeeper’s Summer Splash, how to attend and how to support the event.

As we get ready to celebrate, we’d like to share some of Carpenter’s insights and experiences. Carpenter is the Director of the Institute for Health and the Environment, a Collaborating Centre of the World Health Organization, at the University at Albany - SUNY. After receiving his MD from Harvard Medical School he chose a career of research and public health. Carpenter's research focused on basic neuroscience and has since explored the more general question of environmental causes of human disease, both those directly caused by chemical exposure and those mediated via endocrine disruption. He has more than 450 peer-reviewed scientific publications and has edited six books.

Carpenter also has served as an expert witness in litigation over the harms of PCBs. “A lot of academics look down their nose at people who serve as expert witnesses,” he said during a gathering in March. “I see this as part of my professional responsibility.”

The gathering was called “Science for the People,” held March 19 at the Sanctuary for Independent Media in Troy. Students, colleagues, and representatives of grassroots organizations, including Rebecca Martin of Riverkeeper and Judith Enck, former EPA Region 2 administrator, came together to celebrate his career.