Get to Know Justina Thompson

For Bloomberg Fellow Justina Thompson, the path to public health began not in a classroom or city office, but in a neighborhood farmers market. Here she saw how systemic and racialized disparities in access to healthy, affordable food impacted the health of residents, particularly low-income communities of color. Seeing these disparities firsthand, she worked with her team to build a food stand that was accessible to everyone—accepting SNAP, WIC, and EBT—and learned about the importance of food access. “From then on, I viewed food as a window to understand greater connections to the environment,” she recalls. 

Today, Thompson serves as Program Manager for Environmental Justice in the City of Philadelphia’s Office of Sustainability. In this role, she manages the Community Resilience and Environmental Justice Grant Fund, which in 2025 awarded $15,000 to 20 community-led organizations. Beyond funding, the program provides technical assistance, workshops, and capacity-building support to help ensure grassroots organizations have the tools to thrive. 

Her career has always been rooted in service to both people and the environment. After earning a dual degree in Sustainability and Design from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a Masters in Education from the University of Pennsylvania, she co-managed an urban farm in North Philadelphia. There, she launched a youth immersion program focused on food and land sovereignty. Fundraising for that work introduced her to the world of community resourcing and local grantmaking—skills she now brings into city government. “Environmental justice became the container that held the many complex intersections of community health in relation to the environment,” she says. 

Philadelphia, like many cities, faces systemic inequities in access to clean air, safe water, and green spaces. Thompson and her team define environmental justice as the equitable distribution of environmental benefits and burdens, the righting of past harms, and meaningful community involvement in decision-making. Currently, the team is working to build a mapping tool that will allow policymakers, residents, and organizations to better understand environmental burdens and drivers of inequitable access to resources across the city. The challenge is creating a tool that is both technically useful for policymakers and accessible for residents. “It’s a delicate dance to build something useful without overpromising, while maintaining trust,” she explains. 

For Thompson, storytelling and stewardship are central to this work. As a former farmer and educator, she has long viewed land as something that holds memory and meaning. “The Ghanaian principle Sankofa tells us to ‘go back and get it,’” she says. “For environmental justice, this means carrying painful histories and lessons learned so the same injustices aren’t repeated.” 

Looking ahead, Thompson hopes to help Philadelphians make informed decisions about their health and environment, while advocating for vulnerable communities that need stronger protections. Joining the Bloomberg Fellowship program felt like a natural step. “Environmental justice bridges food, green spaces, trees, transportation, air, water—it’s a comprehensive approach for healthy communities,” she says. “The fellowship is an opportunity to connect environmental justice to the broader field of public health and deepen the impact of my work.”