MICHELLE MARTINEZ

Beto is a grassroots environmental justice organizer and executive director of Rise4EJ. Beto serves to raise community voices in the fight against environmental racism and to overcome systemic exclusion of frontline communities from the decision-making process. His lived experience, growing up fence line to a petrochemical facility, continues to drive his work at the intersection of climate, environmental justice, and public health. He is a founding member of the California Environmental Justice Coalition and the Science and Community Action Network, and a member of multiple National Climate & Environmental Justice Networks. Beto’s contributions to the movement include bottom-up organizing, research, legislation that prioritizes environmental justice, and community-led research to inform policy action, among many other community-engaged initiatives that directly inform state, local, and federal policy. Beto has co-authored multiple academic publications on community-based participatory research, air pollution, data accessibility, and community engagement. He also serves in advisory board roles of professional associations and academic institutions, such as the American Public Health Association’s Center for Climate, Health, and Equity; the University of Southern California (USC) Center for Children’s Environmental Health Sciences Translational Research; and the Advisory Board for the Community Engagement Core of the Southern California Environmental Health Sciences Center at USC. Beto currently serves on the United States Environmental Protection Agency Clean Air Act Advisory Committee, to provide frontline grassroots perspectives and environmental justice priorities. He is committed to finding ways to improve environmental health literacy and centering fenceline community expertise and solutions in public policy.