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Spotlight

Your Public Health Professional and You

Alton Reid


Richmond, Virginia (Aug. 1, 2023) – Alton Reid has been named by his alma mater, Virginia Commonwealth University, one of the university’s top 10 graduates of the past decade.

VCU Alumni’s 10 Under 10 awards celebrate alumni who earned their first VCU degree within the past 10 years and who have enjoyed remarkable professional success, made important contributions to their community and/or loyally supported the university. Reid, a health scientist for the EPA’s Office of Inspector General, graduated in 2013 with a B.S. in biology from the VCU College of Humanities and Sciences.

While attending VCU Alton had great experiences which helped drive his appreciation for his time at VCU and his love of science. After taking classes and speaking with one of his VCU mentors, Dr. John Ryan, Alton helped with early work on an Epigenetics based cancer drug by assisting with research on MCV. Alton stated “I really cherished that experience working within Dr. Joseph Landry’s lab on VCU’s medical campus because it motivated my eventual journey into public health. Dr. Landry also wrote recommendation letters for me, and possibly helped me get future opportunities.”

Eight years ago, Reid was biking from his West Philadelphia neighborhood to Drexel University, where he was working toward his master’s in public health. He passed a group of volunteers renovating a neighbor’s house and stopped and asked if he could help do a public health research project on their work. Reid stated “I noticed that the neighborhood I was in was a bit dilapidated and I felt as though the residents did not deserve that. I walked around regularly and was always treated well by the people of Mantua, and I wanted to help them out to sort of repay their kindness. I felt I could do that through some type of public health research project.”

The volunteers worked with the Home Preservation Initiative, a team of nonprofit partners — including Drexel’s Dornsife School of Public Health — that provide high-quality home repairs to people in lower-income neighborhoods. Reid’s chance encounter led to his research into the physical and mental health impacts of these home renovations. “The thesis I did on the Home Preservation Initiative allowed me to create and present a PowerPoint for the American Public Health Association’s annual conference in 2022, where I presented on the importance of examining infrastructure and health.”

Working with the Home Preservation Initiative enabled him to see how research and public policy can improve an individual’s life.

“I grew up mostly in New York, but in a way, I’m basically a first-generation immigrant; my mom immigrated from Jamaica and my dad came from a Jamaican background,” says Reid. “When my family and I had experiences with the government, they were typically related to challenges, like trying to get a green card to allow us to stay in the country. Being a part of that project while doing interviews with residents of Philadelphia to understand and transcribe their stories, working with the stakeholders to produce an issue brief, and eventually seeing grant funding be earned from the city and other sources to continue to help the residents was inspiring. It made me realize that with the right kind of research one can do a lot of good for a community and led to me working within the federal government.

Reid joined the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Office of Inspector General (OIG) in 2019. As a health scientist, he analyzes and evaluates EPA programs through a public health perspective for fraud, waste and abuse and creates reports to help programs improve themselves. His reports have allowed him to work with many different stakeholders from Mexican public health officials around the US-Mexican border , tribal groups, and various state public health agencies. For one such report, Reid and his team recently were awarded the Gold Medal of Exceptional Service in 2021, the EPA’s most prestigious award, for a report detailing how, in 2018, the EPA had deviated from typical procedures when registering a widely used pesticide. Reid pushed for more accountability and transparency in various processes for that report. He also had the honor of representing the OIG during a podcast, and for a media interview with Federal News Network’s Tom Temin .

His favorite part of his job is mediating between higher-level EPA officials and everyday citizens. “It’s good to be the person talking to both the EPA and someone on the ground who is being impacted by their decisions,” Reid says. “I write reports that explain the perspectives of various groups of people, and some do not always have the loudest of voices. Being able to hear some of those perspectives and write to the EPA about how they need to be more beholden to citizens and taxpayer’s concerns, is a great honor.. I'm happy to be that person who listens and becomes a form of federal accountability because we end up impacting people in positive ways through our work at the EPA OIG.”


Take a look at our interview with Alton and Dr. Lillian Agbeyegbe!

About "Your Public Health Professional and You"

The MdPHA Communications Committee spotlights our Maryland Public Health Professionals representing a wide array of jobs in public health to showcase their experience in the field and connections to MdPHA. The goal of this interview project is to:

  1. Promote public health to the general public
  2. Promote the association to public health professionals in the region, and
  3. Provide exposure for our members.

We are always on the lookout for individuals to spotlight in a 20-minute “talk show” style interview. Interested MdPHA members please contact lilagbeyegbe@gmail.com.

Find past Spotlights here.

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