Alfred University News

Alfred University Riley Lecture to feature author of first-hand account of Flint, MI, water crisis

Alfred University’s 27th Annual Elizabeth and Charles P. Riley Lecture in Women’s and Gender Studies will feature physician and activist Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, the author of What the Eyes Don’t See, the powerful first-hand account of the Flint, Michigan water crisis of 2014.


ALFRED, NY – Alfred University’s 27th Annual Elizabeth and Charles P. Riley Lecture in Women’s and Gender Studies will feature physician and activist Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, the author of What the Eyes Don’t See, the powerful first-hand account of the Flint, Michigan water crisis of 2014.

Hanna-Attisha will be interviewed on the Zoom platform by Michele Hluchy, Alfred University Professor of Environmental Studies/Geology and the Donald Hagar Professor in Natural Sciences, from 5:30 to 6:30 pm Wednesday, March 23.

Hanna-Attisha is credited with exposing the Flint water contamination disaster, pushing back against the inertia of public health agencies and the unwillingness of Flint and Michigan state officials to acknowledge the deadly contamination of Flint’s municipal water system.

What the Eyes Don’t See, she writes, “is the story of a government poisoning its own citizens, and then lying about it … It is a story about what happens when the very people responsible for keeping us safe care more about money and power than they care about us, or our children.”

Flint’s water crisis occurred when the City of Flint switched its municipal water source from the City of Detroit to the Flint River in a cost-saving measure conceived in the midst of a severe economic downturn. Flint River water turned out to be highly corrosive and began dissolving the old lead pipes that serviced the Flint population.

Hanna-Attisha was serving as director of the pediatric residency program at Hurley Medical Center, a teaching hospital affiliated with Michigan State University. Her analysis of Flint residents’ blood tests proved indisputably that they were being poisoned, and she subsequently pushed back against and exposed the official denials of the tragedy.

Described as “a medical and scientific thriller,” What the Eyes Don’t See presents a history of environmental injustice in the U.S. and serves also as Hanna-Attisha’s own memoir, telling the personal story of an immigrant, doctor, and scientist whose family roots in social justice activism helped her address the Flint water crisis.

The Riley Lecture is named for Alfred University graduates Charles Riley ’35 and Elizabeth Hallenbeck Riley ’36, a local activist involved in women's rights issues. Their daughters, Pamela Riley Osborn ’62, Patricia A. Riley ’65, and Melissa Riley sponsor the lecture series in memory of their parents.

The Riley sisters’ gift is a completion of the memorial that Charles Riley had planned for his wife but had not completed before his death.