Austin Le (he/him)

How are you using education to build more sustainable and equitable communities? Tell us about your EE work and impact.

I use environmental education to help future physicians connect climate science to patient care and build a more equitable, sustainable health system. At the University of Illinois College of Medicine, I founded a chapter of Medical Students for a Sustainable Future (MS4SF) and led students in identifying gaps in our climate and health curriculum. Our work helped bring climate health into the curriculum at one of the nation’s largest medical schools. I continue to teach students about environmental exposures, health inequities, and ways to reduce the environmental footprint of clinical care.

With an American Public Health Association (APHA) champions for climate justice award, I organized a clinical case competition where medical students practiced caring for patients affected by heat, air pollution, and other climate threats. I shared lessons from the project at APHA’s national conference.

As MS4SF’s national research co-chair, I helped organize Climate Health Equity Day 2026, where more than 70 trainees from over 40 institutions presented research and built connections. This year, I founded a yearlong climate health research collaborative to help junior trainees develop the skills to investigate environmental inequities and turn evidence into action.

Tell us about your journey to where you are today. What inspired you? What has your path been like?

I grew up in San Jose, California’s Vietnamese refugee community, where my family’s stories taught me that environments shape health across generations. Relatives described Agent Orange exposure in Vietnam; after resettlement, my mother worked as a fruit harvester at age 14. Living in a city with neighborhoods patterned by immigration status and ethnicity exposed me to modern-day environmental injustice where exposures like air pollution were concentrated in historically under-resourced communities of color.

At the University of California, Berkeley, I studied molecular environmental biology and minored in public health and conservation and resource studies, earned a master’s degree in environmental health sciences, and began researching how air pollution and early adversity may jointly affect children. I continued my education pursuing medical training at the University of Illinois College of Medicine where I organize and teach around climate, health, and sustainable care. I lead research that examines the impact of climate change on mental and physical health and participate in state and national advocacy to translate my findings into systems change.

How can people learn more about or support your work? 

You can read our 2026 Planetary Health Report Card to see what our student assessment revealed about gaps in medical education. Explore the Climate Health Equity Day research program to see the work health trainees shared. Learn more about my graduate research at UC Berkeley with Professor Rosemarie de la Rosa that motivated my ongoing work. 

If you are a health professions student, consider joining Medical Students for a Sustainable Future or starting a chapter. Educators and clinicians can bring climate and environmental justice into training and invite community partners to help shape what is taught. I welcome opportunities to collaborate on practical, community-informed climate and health education.
 

A Little More About Me

What book, film, or art piece has had the greatest impact on you?
Watching Earth 2100 as a child first introduced me to the climate crisis as I saw a possible future unfold through a child storyteller. Projected wide-spread disease, displacement, and suffering from a changing climate drew me to pursuing both medicine and environmental health to build a healthier future.

What (or who) keeps you hopeful for the future?
Caring for pediatric patients keeps me hopeful. Their humor, curiosity, and optimism for the future remind me why I teach clinicians to care for them now and protect the environments they will inherit.

What is the wildest or most surprising environmental/nature fun-fact you know?
I am amazed that microscopic phytoplankton drifting through the ocean produce roughly half of Earth’s oxygen each year, as much as all land plants combined, including trees.