Meredith Hastings has built a career that spans scientific research, academic leadership and efforts to make scholarship more inclusive, engaged and responsive to communities.

An accomplished environmental scientist whose research examines the connections among atmospheric chemistry, air quality and climate, Hastings has increasingly brought that expertise into partnership with Rhode Island communities, addressing local priorities with residents and organizations to generate knowledge and positive public impact.

The Swearer Center for Public Service has named Hastings, the George Ide Chase Professor of Physical Sciences and professor of environment and society and Earth, environmental and planetary sciences, a Faculty Fellow for the 2026-27 academic year. In the role, Hastings will work with Swearer Center staff, faculty leaders and partners across Brown to advance institutional support for community-engaged scholarship, with a particular focus on how the University and academic units evaluate and support faculty whose research and teaching engage communities. 

“Meredith brings deep experience as a scholar, educator and community-engaged researcher, as well as commitment to making high-impact partnerships feasible for colleagues across the university,” said Mary Jo Callan, vice president for community engagement and Stark Family Executive Director of the Swearer Center. “Her leadership will be vital as we work across Brown to strengthen how this work is understood and valued as an essential part of the University’s academic mission.”

Experience putting engagement into practice

Hastings brings firsthand experience with both the opportunities and challenges of conducting research in partnership with communities.

She leads Breathe Providence, a community-scale air quality monitoring initiative launched in 2022 that uses a network of low-cost sensors across Providence to better understand neighborhood-level air pollution. The initiative works with community organizations, residents and government agencies to collect and interpret environmental data, with an emphasis on neighborhoods experiencing elevated environmental and health burdens.

Through Breathe Providence’s Resident Task Force model, residents identify research questions and areas for investigation rather than participating solely as sources of data. The initiative’s first task force explored issues including indoor air quality in schools, and a second iteration supported by Brown’s Equitable Climate Futures initiative is examining community experiences related to air quality, housing, energy and decarbonization.

Hastings engages numerous students at Brown in these and other collaborative research projects and co-teaches a Community-Based Learning and Research course, ENVS 1247: Clearing the Air: Environmental Studies of Pollution. For Hastings, those experiences have underscored both the value of community engagement and the resources and structures needed to develop and sustain it.

Her commitment to creating a more inclusive academy extends beyond Brown and Rhode Island. In 2002, Hastings co-founded the Earth Science Women’s Network (ESWN), which grew from an informal peer network into an international nonprofit focused on career development, community, mentoring and professional collaboration in the Earth sciences. Hastings and ESWN are also involved in ADVANCEGeo, an NSF-supported partnership to improve workplace culture in the geosciences. 

Advancing community-engaged scholarship at Brown

Hastings has also helped shape Brown’s efforts to strengthen the infrastructure for community-engaged scholarship. As a member of the Community Engagement Council’s Engaged Scholarship Committee in 2024-25, Hastings contributed to recommendations focused on formal University- and department- level recognition of community-engaged scholarship. 

As chair of the Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences, Hastings also led a departmental team participating in the first year of the Community-Engaged Department Program. Through conversations with faculty, graduate students, research staff, postdoctoral fellows and others, the department examined how its scholarship connects with audiences and collaborators beyond the University. The process identified opportunities to strengthen community relationships and outreach, expand community-engaged research and teaching and consider how the department recognizes and values that work.

Her Faculty Fellowship builds on those experiences. To advance recommendations from the Engaged Scholarship Committee, Hastings will work with Swearer Center staff and faculty leaders in a community of practice, the second year of the Community-Engaged Department Program, and new resources to help interested departments and TPAC members evaluate and recognize community engagement in faculty promotions.

Hastings will also co-chair the Community Engagement Council's Public Impact Research Committee and consult on major funding proposals related to these efforts. Her one-year appointment began July 1, 2026 and runs through June 30, 2027.

“Through understanding the impact that my research can have, I have learned to better understand that how I conduct research can connect with who I conduct research for,“ Hastings notes. “I see this position as an opportunity to strategize and collaborate with colleagues across campus who want to ensure our values at Brown are reflected in our scholarly practices and standards.”