About Sarah Vogel

Sarah Vogel

Senior Vice President, Healthy Communities

Contact

Washington, D.C. Office

Work

Areas of expertise:

Toxic emissions, clean air, methane and health, chemical safety, endocrine disruptors

Sarah is the Senior Vice President, Healthy Communities, at Environmental Defense Fund (EDF). She joined EDF in 2012 and leads a team of scientists, attorneys and policy experts to protect health by reducing exposure to toxic chemicals and air pollution. In addition, Sarah co-leads Clean Air Catalyst, a USAID-supported clean air initiative with experts, governments and community leaders on the ground in Indore, India, Jakarta, Indonesia and Nairobi, Kenya.

Recent achievements of the program include: AirTracker technology global expansion, strong updates to U.S. chemical and air quality protections in 2024, bipartisan passage of major reforms to the nation’s chemical safety law in 2016; and leadership commitments by Walmart to reduce its chemical footprint in 2013 and 2017. 

The current portfolio of work that Sarah oversees includes: defending strong implementation of the Lautenberg Chemical Safety Act; working with leading companies to reduce the use of hazardous chemicals along the supply chain; reducing lead exposures from drinking water and food; and catalyzing the use of hyperlocal air pollution information to drive innovative policy solutions for clean air.

Background

Sarah has frequently written and spoken to diverse audiences about the controversy over the chemical bisphenol A, or BPA, and the impact of new emerging science on regulatory policy. She is the author of the forthcoming book “Is It Safe: BPA and the Struggle to Define the Safety of Chemicals”, published by the University of California Press in December 2012.

Education

Sarah received a Ph.D from Columbia University’s Center for the History and Ethics of Public Health and Medicine at the Mailman school of Public Health. She also holds a Master of Public Health and Master Environmental management from Yale University, and a BA from the University of Virginia.

Publications

Books
Vogel, Sarah.  “Is It Safe?: BPA and struggle to define the safety of chemicals”, University of California Press, release date, December 20, 2012.  

Book Chapters
Vogel, Sarah.  “Of Baby Bottles and BPA” in Controversies in Science and Technology, 4th  volume. (under contract with Oxford University Press).    

Schug, T, Vogel, SA, Vandenberg L, Braun J, Hauser R, Taylor J, vom Saal F, and Heindel JJ. “Bisphenol A” in Dioxins and Health: Including Other Persistent Organic Pollutants and Endocrine Disruptors, 3rd Edition. Arnold Schector, ed., John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2012. 

Peer-reviewed journals
Sutton P, Vogel S, Bero L, and Woodruff T.  “Conrad and Becker’s “10 Criteria” Fall Short of  Addressing Conflicts of Interest in Chemical Safety  Studies.” Environmental Health Perspectives, 2011 Dec;119(12):A506-7.

Vogel S and Roberts J. “Why The Toxic Substances Control Act Needs An Overhaul, And How To Strengthen Oversight of Chemicals In The Interim,” Health Affairs 2011 May; 30(5): 898-905.   

Vogel S.  “The Politics of Plastics: The Making and Unmaking of Bisphenol A Safety,” American Journal of Public Health 2009 Nov; 99 Suppl 3: S559-66.

Myers JP et al.,(including Vogel S), “Why Public Health Agencies Cannot Depend upon ‘Good Laboratory Practices’ as a Criterion for Selecting Data: The Case of Bisphenol A,” Environmental Health Perspectives 2009 Mar; 117(3): 309-15.

Vogel S.  “From the ‘Dose Makes the Poison’ to the ‘Timing Makes the Poison’: Conceptualizing Risk in the Synthetic Age.” Environmental History 2008 Oct; 13: 667-673.

Press materials