Ms. Mel Bromberg brings more than 25 years of experience and knowledge in public-environmental health with an emphasis educating the public about water quality, water quantity and health related issues from both drinking and wastewater. In 2007 she created her own consulting company, WaterSHED International LLC, (the SHED stands for Sanitation and Hygiene Education and Sustainability) which is designed to help developing countries meet United Nations Goals for water and sanitation hygiene access. Through both formal and informal education curriculums and projects with direct bearing on the prevention of waterborne illnesses, Bromberg’s company helps to focus on capacity building through education, good governance, scientific and informed decision making and the integration of water resources and management within developed and developing countries.
In 2009, Bromberg traveled to Nigeria on a Rotary International Foundation Grant which she co-authored, to help teach students and their teachers about water, sanitation and hygiene issues as part of a water access and sustainability project for the community of Aba. In December 2009, Bromberg served as a delegate from the United States League of Women Voters to the Copenhagen Climate Change conference around water adaptation and flood mitigation issues. Bromberg has developed an on-line teachers’ course for the Heritage Institute/ accredited by Antioch University in Seattle, Washington entitled: “Enough Water? A Global Issue” and offered this initial course globally to over 30 teachers.
Bromberg has served on conference planning committees locally in her community for the Water, Law and People conference at Marquette University and for the Green Energy Summit conference held each year by the Milwaukee Area Technical College and the World Affairs Institute Annual Summer Workshops for High School Students.
Until 2007, she was a research science coordinator for a National Institute of Environmental Health-Sciences Program (NIEHS/NIH SEPA Program) to introduce middle school science teachers and their students to the subject matter areas of environmental toxicology, public health and life science education. Through the creation of seven" experiment modules which used live aquatic organisms, both teachers and students were stimulated to inquire about the properties of living organisms and make connections with water related environmental health problems.
As part of the Marine and Freshwater Biomedical Sciences Center and the
Institute of Environmental Health at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Bromberg was responsible for execution and implementation of this grant. Previously, Bromberg worked for seven years at the University of Illinois Extension at Champaign-Urbana as a Water Quality and Health Issues Specialist. She provided to Extension clientele information on the health effects of drinking water and comparative risk assessments between bottled, tap and well waters.
Bromberg holds graduate degrees from the University of Cincinnati, and the Ohio State University in Community Planning and Public and Environmental Health. Both degrees tie together her research interests in seeking to have the world better understand water, water quality risks, public health preparedness for water utilities, as well as infrastructural and resource allocation issues. She is very concerned about the global inequities in water resources, and how the application of "good" science can be used to preserve and protect existing water resources. Bromberg has published over 20 monographs, trade journal articles, taught in both pre-college and college classrooms, appeared on a nationally syndicated television news shows, and given radio and press interviews in an effort to heighten public awareness of drinking water, water scarcity issues and health related risks from drinking water.
Bromberg is a current member of the AWWA, Wisconsin Water Association, Wisconsin Public Health Association, and the League of Women Voters, the United Nations' Association, and the Alliance for Water Efficiency and a spousal member of her local Rotary Club. She is the Team Leader for Education and Sustainability for Rotary International's Water and Sanitation Rotary Action Group or WASRAG. In Illinois, she served on the State Water Quality Task Force, the Federal Emergency Preparedness Task Force and developed public educational materials for an Illinois water utility's local citizen based watershed group. In Wisconsin, Bromberg prepared a needs assessment instrument for the Wisconsin Water Association which was used to pinpoint water quality issues and focus on the association's efforts to educate water professionals. She has recently developed and conducted a water public health preparedness workshop presented at the 2005 Wisconsin Water Association Annual Conference to be used by utilities in preparation for their emergency response plans.
Bromberg lives in Glendale, Wisconsin with her husband, Ellis the general manager of public television station WMVS/WMVT, Channels 10 and 36, and her daughter Kyra, an actress, who presently resides in New York City.
