Maryland Environmental Health Network
Staff
Tamara Toles O’Laughlin
Executive Director
Tamara Toles O’Laughlin is an environmental advocate focused on health, equity, access, and justice. Her niche is developing capacity building programs and the creation of multimedia campaigns to dismantle privilege and increase opportunities for vulnerable populations to access health air, clean energy, and a toxic free economy at the local, regional, and national level.
Tamara casts a wide net in service to community. Among her activities, she is the co-chair of DC Eco Women, serving 6000 professional women in the environment, and she is the vice chair of the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, Air and Climate Public Advisory Committee. Tamara also serves as a vice chair and director on the Board of Directors of Women’s Voices for the Earth based in Missoula, Montana. Women’s Voices disrupts industry standards by forcing ingredient disclosure and the elimination of toxic chemicals from personal care products.
Tamara graduated from the Vermont Law School in 2009, with a Juris Doctor and Masters of Environmental Law and Policy.
Tamara has worked for nearly two decades to embed the principles of environmental justice into applied environmental work, with attention to community capacity building, mobilization, equity of enforcement, and environmental health.
Prior to taking the helm at MdEHN she held varying positions with distinguished organizations including the District Department of Energy and Environment in Washington DC, the Maryland Energy Administration, Advisory Council of Historic Preservation, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Center on Race, Poverty and Environment, Natural Resources Defense Council, and the New York City Department of Environmental Protection, among others. Prior to relocation to the Mid-Atlantic Tamara served as the Senior Law Clerk to the Honorable Douglas A. Brady and Senior Sitting Judge Julio A. Brady.
Blake Wrigley
Communications Coordinator
Blake Wrigley, a resident of Charles Village, coordinates our communications portfolio. He is a former fellow with the Network, having recently earned his master’s degree from University of Maryland’s School of Social Work in Baltimore where he studied Community Action and Social Policy. Prior to coming to MdEHN, Blake worked with Baltimore youth with Parks & People Foundation, and as an AmeriCorps Fellow. He has also worked on several green space restoration projects in Baltimore. Blake is passionate about issues of environmental justice and is excited to work in the intersection of human and environmental health.
Rabbi Nina Beth Cardin
Field Director, Healthy Green Maryland Campaign
Rabbi Cardin works at the intersection of faith, nature and sustainability; She has served as national director for COEJL (the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life), am Advocacy Co-Chair of the Pearlstone Jewish Sustainability Coalition in Baltimore, partnering with the Central Maryland Ecumenical Council. Nina is the co-founder and move
Abigail Baum
Johns Hopkins SOURCE Fellow
Abigail Baum is a doctoral student in Health and Public Policy in the department of Health Policy and Management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Abigail’s research interests include supporting the integration of health into systems and policies in various social sectors and health inequities across neighborhoods. Abigail’s dissertation research is focusing on mechanisms through which people most affected by social welfare policy participate in the decision-making process from design to implementation and evaluation.
Prior to coming to Hopkins, Abigail was a Senior Associate on the Health Impact Project, a collaboration of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and The Pew Charitable Trusts, where she worked on evaluating Health Impact Assessments (HIA), conducting an HIA on federal educational policy, leading an initiative to scale health considerations into non-health care organizational operations. Before joining the Health Impact Project, Baum served as a Research Associate at the Metropolitan Housing and Communities Policy Center at the Urban Institute on projects at the intersection of housing, community, and health, including a national assessment of Native American housing, technical assistance to building evaluation capacity for nonprofits, and an evaluation of supportive housing with families involved in the child welfare system. She holds a MPH and MSW from the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis in 2012, and a BA from Carleton College in 2008, majoring in American Studies and Educational Studies.
