Na’Taki Osborne Jelks
Na'Taki Osborne Jelks
Dr. Na’Taki Osborne Jelks is an environmental justice and public health activist and scholar. She worked for over 14 years for the National Wildlife Federation on community development and education programs before earning her Ph.D. and beginning her teaching career. She is an assistant professor of environmental health and sciences at Spelman College. Her research focuses on environmental disparities and social factors influencing health. She has received numerous awards for her contributions to the community and literature and lends her expertise to several organizations. Dr. Jelks has published robust literature on the intersection of health and the environment.
Cooper, C. B., Hawn, C. L., Larson, L. R., Parrish, J. K., Bowser, G.,… & Wilson, S. 2021. Inclusion in citizen science: The conundrum of rebranding. Science, 372(6549), 1386-1388.
Jelks, N. T. O., Jennings, V., & Rigolon, A. 2021. Green gentrification and health: A scoping review. International journal of environmental research and public health, 18(3), 907.
Jennings, V., Baptiste, A. K., Osborne Jelks, N. T., & Skeete, R. 2017. Urban green space and the pursuit of health equity in parts of the United States. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 14(11), 1432.
Jelks, N. T. O., Hawthorne, T. L., Dai, D., Fuller, C. H., & Stauber, C. 2018. Mapping the hidden hazards: community-led spatial data collection of street-level environmental stressors in a degraded, urban watershed. International journal of environmental research and public health, 15(4), 825.
Vance‐Chalcraft, H. D., & Jelks, N. T. O. 2023. Community‐engaged learning to broaden the impact of applied ecology: A case study. Ecological Applications, e2768.
Dr. Na’Taki Osborne Jelks received her Bachelor of Science in Chemistry from Spelman College. While at Spelman, Dr. Jelks participated in programs such as the Spelman College Environmental Task Force, the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Undergraduate Research Fellowship. Dr. Jelks continued her education at Emory University, receiving a Master of Public Health in Environmental and Occupational Health. Dr. Jelks graduated from the Institute of Georgia Environmental Leadership Program in 2004.
Continuing her education in Georgia, Dr. Jelks pursued a Doctor of Philosophy in Public Health with a concentration on environmental health from Georgia State School of Public Health. Dr. Jelks’s Ph.D. work was entitled Combined Environmental and Social Stressors In Northwest Atlanta’s Proctor Creek Watershed: An Exploration of Expert Data and Local Knowledge. She received the 2016 Georgia State University School of Public Health Diane Caves Memorial Award for her dedication to environmental justice and excellent academic studies.
Dr. Jelks began her environmental career by co-founding the National Wildlife Federation’s (NWF) Atlanta Earth Tomorrow Program in 2001. In 2002, she became the National Leadership Development Coordinator for the NWF. In 2003, Dr. Jelks became a Senior Fellow with the Environmental Leadership Program. In 2005, she became the Manager of the Community & Leadership Development Program at NWF. In 2011, Dr. Jelks began a part-time position with NWF – as the Education & Advocacy Programs Manager.
From 2016 to 2018, Dr. Jelks worked at Agnes Scott College as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Environmental Health and from 2017 to 2018 as the Director of the Graduate Certificate Program in Evaluation and Assessment Methods.
In 2018, Dr. Jelks joined Spelman College as an Assistant Professor of Environmental & Health Sciences at Spelman College. Her research focuses on environmental disparities, factors impacting health, climate change’s impact on vulnerable populations, and the built environments’ effects on health. She co-leads UrbanHeatATL, a student and community-led research initiative mapping heat islands in Atlanta.
Dr. Jelks has many volunteering experiences, such as being an Advisory Board Member of the Westside Communities Alliance (WCA). Since 2018, Dr. Jelks has been a National Environmental Justice Advisory Council (NEJAC) member. She is also the Chair of the Board of Directors of the West Atlanta Watershed Alliance (WAWA), the Board of Directors member of the Citizen Science Association, and the Co-Chair of the Proctor Creek Stewardship Council. Dr. Jelks is also a co-founder of the West Atlanta Watershed Alliance (WAWA). Dr. Jelks received the White House Champions of Change award in 2014, and her work has been featured in People and The New York Times. In 2023, she received the Environmental Justice for the People Award from NWF.
Na’Taki Osborne Jelks, Ph.D., MPH, C’95. 2021. Spelman.edu. https://www.spelman.edu/academics/faculty/directory/profile/na’taki-os…
Na’Taki Osborne Jelks. 2023. Linkedin.com. https://www.linkedin.com/in/na-taki-osborne-jelks-ph-d-mph-571225/
Survey and interviews conducted by Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Sustainability Initiative staff. 2022-2023. Yale University-School of the Environment. New Haven, Connecticut.
Wikipedia Contributors. (March 1,2023). Na’Taki Osborne Jelks. Wikipedia; Wikimedia Foundation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Na%27Taki_Osborne_Jelks
Spelman.edu, 2021