Who We Are

Dani DeVasto, Project Director

As a teacher and researcher, I believe in the power of stories to inform, heal, motivate, and engage.

I’m an assistant professor in the Department of Writing at Grand Valley State University (GVSU), where I teach courses on how writing can shape more livable worlds. As a researcher, I study how experts, like scientists and medical professionals, communicate with the public about risk and uncertainty.

My PFAS story begins at the dinner table, in the small snippets shared between family members about their days. My husband, a geologist, was beginning to hear about PFAS at work. But it wasn’t until I moved to Western Michigan that PFAS began to feature more prominently in my life.

Given my research, GVSU colleagues reached out to me about their work with PFAS. I began attending community events and meetings. And I began to learn about all the ways PFAS had been with me all along—in the pink waterproof Merrill shoes I wear on hikes, in the sunblock I put on my children, in the microwave popcorn bags I treat myself to, in the firefighting gear my brother wears. As I began to pay more attention, I noticed that a lot of the conversation focused on technical aspects of PFAS, like their chemistry, maximum contaminant levels, where they come from, how to detect and remediate them.

But what was often missing were the people and their lived experiences.