Sandra Steingraber

Sandra Steingraber (1960 - ) is an American biologist and author in the tradition of Rachel Carson. Steingraber writes and lectures on the environmental factors that contribute to reproductive health problems and cancer.

Steingraber was adopted as an infant, and she grew up in Tazewell County, Illinois. Her mother was a microbiologist and her father was a high-school teacher. Her parents inculcated in her an interest in sustainable development and organic agriculture from a young age.

As a teenager, Steingraber developed bladder cancer. She was not alone; in several of her books, she describes an apparent cancer cluster in her hometown.

After her cancer went into remission, Steingraber completed her undergraduate degree in biology from Illinois Wesleyan University. She worked for several years as a field researcher, eventually earning her doctorate in biology from the University of Michigan. Steingraber also holds a master's degree in English from Illinois State University.

Steingraber participated in the Wingspread Conference in Racine, Wisconsin, in January 1998. The conference attendees drafted a recommendation that government agencies, corporations, communities, and individuals should employ the Precautionary Principle when making environmental decisions. In 1999, she spoke before the United Nations on the topic of breastmilk contamination.

Ms. Magazine named Steingraber its "Woman of the Year" in 1997, following the publication of Living Downstream. Two years later, she won the Will Solimene Award for Excellence in Medical Communication from the American Medical Writers Association. In 2001, she earned the Rachel Carson Leadership Award.

Steingraber now teaches at Ithaca College, located in Ithaca, New York. She is married to Jeff de Castro, a sculptor and art restoration specialist.

Books by Steingraber

• The Spoils of Famine: Ethiopian Famine Policy and Peasant Agriculture (Cultural Survival Report 25) (1988, co-author), which raised issues of ecology and human rights in Africa.
• Post-diagnosis (1995), a volume of poetry on living with cancer.
• Living Downstream: An Ecologist Looks at Cancer and the Environment (1997), which proposed a relationship between cancer registry data and toxics-release inventory data.
• Having Faith: An Ecologist’s Journey to Motherhood (2001), which explored fetal toxicology and genetics with respect to Steingraber's own pregnancy.