Dom Apollon

Dominique Apollon, Ph.D., Research Director, is a graduate of the University of Virginia (B.A., American Government, 1996), and received his doctorate in political science from Stanford University in 2003.  His dissertation, “Relieving the Toxic Burden?: Race, Hazardous Wastes, and the Politics of the Environmental Justice Movement” examined the distribution of toxic wastes in the state of California from 1989-1999, as well as the corresponding grassroots political activity and participation.  Dom has taught undergraduate seminars on the politics of race/ethnicity at Stanford University and Santa Clara University, and served as an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at California State University, Bakersfield, where he taught courses on U.S. Constitutional Law, Introductory American Politics, Environmental Politics, Congress, and the Presidency from 2004-2007.

Born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland, Dom served as program coordinator for the 1999 Stanford University Conference on Race, “African Americans: Research and Policy Perspectives at the Turn of the Century,” and has presented research at conferences and institutions of higher learning in Albuquerque, NM, Chicago, IL, Des Moines, IA, New Haven, CT, Pomona, CA, and Riverside, CA among other U.S. cities.  He has participated in public forums and discussions on state elections, civil rights, civil liberties, environmental degradation and policy, and youth political mobilization.  An alumnus of the American Political Science Association’s Ralph Bunche Summer Institute (1995), he was also an award-winning opinion page columnist at The Cavalier Daily newspaper in Charlottesville, VA.

Dom currently serves on the Board of Directors of the San Quentin Prison-based non-profit organization California Reentry Program, and has volunteered for other Bay Area non-profits such as GRID Alternatives, Habitat for Humanity - San Francisco, Rebuilding Together (Midpeninsula), and StreetLaw for Youth (Stanford Law School chapter).