Sherry Brandt-Rauf teaches and conducts research in the area of environmental and occupational health policy on the federal, state, and local levels. She uses teaching as the vehicle for policy development (and vice versa). In her classes, students learn about the legal, political, and scientific underpinnings of policy in a current area of concern while working on a policy document that can be used to drive public discourse and policymaking in that area. Recent areas of focus have included temporary workers, climate change and occupational health, state and local initiatives in fracking, environmental policy at the local level, food insecurity among students, and reporting of pesticide exposure-related illness and injury.