For Andrea Rother, 2002–03 American Fellowship recipient, finding her niche in environmental sociology specializing in pesticide risk management was certainly a process. Currently based out of the University of Cape Town’s School of Public Health and Family Medicine in South Africa, Rother became interested in Africa started when she participated in an exchange program between Michigan State University and the University of Zimbabwe.
“Initially, as a rural sociology master’s student, I was interested in preserving traditional farming practices in Africa, which led me to start looking into the antithesis – pesticides”, she explained. After earning her master’s degree she went on to get her doctorate with the help of an AAUW American Fellowship. “The fellowship provided me with the means to finish my Ph.D., which had been interrupted by a family crisis. Not only did the fellowship provide me with financial support, but it gave me ‘self-esteem support’ that I needed to finish my degree despite the hiatus.”
Rother’s 25-year career has been full of accomplishments both at the university level and in terms of creating meaningful social change. This past year, she established a distance-learning course focusing on pesticide risk management and risk reduction to provide pesticide regulators with the necessary information to implement U.N. pesticides and conventions in their communities effectively.
Rother also received the University of Cape Town Chancellor’s 2010 Social Responsiveness Award for her research on street pesticides and child poisonings. As a result of her breakthrough research, the South African government has devised a new plan for removing harmful pesticides sold on the street from the market, a new pesticide notification form for South Africa was developed to comply with the U.N. regulations, and various risk communication tools were developed in several languages to warn people of the risks of pesticide use.
Looking into the future, Rother plans to spend time expanding the capacity of African and other developing countries’ pesticide regulators. By providing these individuals with short-term course work, master’s programs, and innovative online discussions, she hopes that communities will be able to see fewer cases of poisoning, cancer, and environmental contamination. She also is hoping to learn French so she can communicate better with French-speaking countries involved in pesticide regulation.
Rother’s accomplishments in the field of environmental sociology are truly inspirational to women looking to help both individuals and communities create healthier and more sustainable pest control practices. For her, creating achievable goals has been the key to her success. “Career routes have their ups and downs,” she said. “In order to maintain a career journey, it is important to have passion within one’s field of interest and to have personal goals. If I can just prevent one child from being poisoned then I feel all the downs were worth it.”
This post was written by Fellowships and Grants Intern Mia Cakebread.
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