Susan Moir, ScD
LRC Director
Wheatley, 4th floor, Room 144/11
617-287-7377
Susan.Moir@umb.edu
Susan Moir, ScD, has directed the Labor Resource Center since September 2004. She was a leader in the Boston School Bus Drivers’ Union, USWA 8751 for fifteen years before becoming the founding Director of the Construction Occupational Health Program (COHP) at UMass Lowell. The COHP partnered with the Building Trades Unions to conduct health and safety research on Boston’s Big Dig. As Director of the COHP, Dr. Moir conducted participatory research and developed popular education programs with construction workers. Two participatory action research (PAR) projects are described in her 2004 doctoral dissertation, “Worker Participation in Occupational Health and Safety Change in the Construction Workplace.”
Since coming to the LRC, Dr. Moir has focused the Center’s strategic planning on expanding and strengthening the undergraduate Labor Studies program and better integrating the three Center initiatives of Education, Training and Research. In the Spring 2006 semester, she designed and taught the Labor Studies course in Union Administration. She will be co-teaching the Labor-focused Critical Learning Seminar: The Future of Work in Fall 2006.
Recent publications and presentations:
Moir, S. (2005). "Ideological influences on participatory research in occupational health and safety: A review of the literature." New Solutions: A Journal of Environmental & Occupational Health Policy15(1): 15 – 28.
Moir, S. and E. Skidmore (2006). “Designing a Pre-Apprenticeship Model for Women Entering and Succeeding in the Construction Trades,” Center for Women and Work, University of Massachusetts Lowell.
Moir, S. and L. S. Azaroff (2006). "The Boston-Area Research Circle on Health and Safety for Women in Construction: An Innovative Participatory Method for Coloring in the Picture of a Special Work Environment." Submitted to New Solutions: A Journal of Environmental & Occupational Health Policy.
Ahn, K. and S. Moir (2006). "“Noise Perimeter Zones” – A New Systematic Method for Noise Exposure Reduction in Highway Construction Sites." Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene. (In press).
Tak, S., L. Punnett, S. Moir, et al. “Physical ergonomic hazards in highway tunnel construction: Overview from the Construction Occupational Health Program.” Paper accepted for presentation at the American Public Health Association Annual Meeting, Boston, Nov. 2006.
