Bakeyah S. Nelson, PhD, has over 15 years of experience working to advance environmental justice in Houston communities. She is the founder of Community Health Collaborative Consulting, LLC where she partners with community, nonprofit and philanthropic partners to move environmental justice, climate justice and health equity forward.

She previously served as the Global Initiative Director for Climate Imperative Foundation, as Executive Director of Air Alliance Houston and in Harris County Public Health’s Office of Policy and Planning, where she led health equity initiatives. Dr. Nelson serves on a number of advisory boards and committees aimed at advancing environmental justice and health equity including: the Advisory Board for the Hive Fund for Climate and Gender Justice, the Board of the Jacob and Terese Hershey Foundation, and the Board of the National Recreation Foundation.

Dr. Nelson is a 2023 Public Voices Fellow with TheOpEd Project, in partnership with the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. She was named 2020 Clean Air Champion of the Year by the Texas Energy Summit, is a Senior Fellow of Class XLVI of the American Leadership Forum, and was an Aspen Institute Health Scholar in 2019.

In 2018, she was honored as one of the Texas Organizing Project’s Community Champions. She is a contributing faculty member at Baylor University in the Department of Public Health.