Our Team

Samantha Totoni brings her public health background in environmental, occupational, community, and behavioral health to CTRL. She is excited to lead research on influence campaign countermeasures centering community voices and participatory approaches, working alongside community groups as co-producers of knowledge. Her research focus has included industry-produced science denial about the highly politicized, urgent problem of hunting with lead-based ammunition. Her work also highlighted an overlooked environmental justice issue in the lack of protection for recipients of hunted meat donated to food banks. Samantha’s mentorship, research, and writing have also focused on maternal and child health, environmental justice, and extreme heat, including in projects co-produced with community members. Samantha was a 2025 American Association for the Advancement of Science Mass Media Fellow at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.