Acclaimed author, ecologist and cancer-survivor Sandra Steingraber, Ph.D., heralded as the “new Rachel Carson,” will speak at Buffalo State College on Monday, Nov. 7, 2005, from noon-2 p.m., in the Performing Arts Center in Rockwell Hall on the campus at 1300 Elmwood Ave.

Steingraber’s talk, “Contaminated Without Consent: How Toxic Chemicals in Air, Food and Water Violate Human Rights,” is presented as part of the college’s “Women in Science and Mathematics Speaker Series” and is free and open to the public.

Steingraber is an internationally recognized expert on the environmental links to cancer and reproductive health. She earned her doctorate in biology from the University of Michigan and master’s degree in English from Illinois State University. She is the author of “Post-Diagnosis,” a volume of poetry, and co-author of “The Spoils of Famine,” a book on ecology and human rights in Africa. She has taught biology at Columbia College, Chicago, held visiting fellowships at the University of Illinois, Radcliffe/Harvard and Northeastern University and served on President Clinton’s National Action Plan on Breast Cancer.

Steingraber’s highly acclaimed book, “Living Downstream: An Ecologist Looks at Cancer and the Environment,” presents cancer as a human rights issue. It was the first to bring together data on toxic releases with newly released data from U.S. cancer registries. “Living Downstream” won praise from international media, including The Washington Post, The Nation, The Chicago Tribune, Kirkus Reviews, Publishers In 1999, the Sierra Club heralded her as “the new Rachel Carson.” And in 2001, Carson’s own alma mater, Chatham College, selected Steingraber to receive its biennial Rachel Carson Leadership Award.

Steingraber’s talk is sponsored by Buffalo State College’s Office of Equity and Campus Diversity and the Office of the Dean of Natural and Social Sciences.