Our Founder

Dedicated expert with a wealth of research and knowledge.

Biologist Mary Olson is clear her life’s mission is to bring to light to the disproportionate impact of radiation on girls and women.

Through her work as a staff biologist and policy analyst at Nuclear Information and Resource Service, Olson has spent decades working for greater health and greater protection for people in communities impacted by nuclear activities. She has studied radiation health consequences with some of the leading radiation researchers of the 20th Century including Bertell, Stewart, Caldicott, and Wing. She was also featured in the educational film The Ultimate Wish: Ending the Nuclear Age.

After the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in 2011, Olson decided to pursue questions about greater harm to girls and women from ionizing exposures. From a study of survivors of US nuclear strikes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki compiled over sixty years, Olson learned there is a measurably greater harm from radiation to girls and women. Olson’s briefing paper on the subject has formed the basis of her core work ever since and has led to several speaking engagements worldwide.

In 2014, she presented at the Vienna Conference on Humanitarian Consequences of Nuclear Weapons and in 2015, she spoke at the United Nations during review of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. In 2016, she was a featured speaker during a five-week tour of Japan and spoke on the medical consequences of nuclear weapons at an event sponsored by the International Committee of the Red Cross in Russia and presented as a featured panelist at the Gender Summit 9 in Brussels.

In 2017, the same year the Nobel Prize was awarded to The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, Olson returned to the United Nations to present during negotiations on a new global treaty to ban nuclear weapons, whose preamble was written to include reference to gender and radiation. In 2018, Olson spoke at the Gender Summit 15 in London and participated in two events in Scotland - the first with the Union of Radio Ecologists who research impact of radiation in the environment and the second at the Low-Dose Radiation Conference at the University of Stirling.

She continues to receive requests to address international and governmental agencies on the subject of gender and ionizing radiation.

Olson’s background in biology, biochemistry, and her own experience with radioactive contamination as a young woman have put her in a unique position to speak publicly on radiation policy from a health, safety, and humanitarian perspective. She hopes to inspire cancer prevention strategies worldwide that will contribute to more successful reproduction and viability of future generations.

Click the Blog link to learn more about the history of Generational Radiation Impact Project.

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Our Board

BOARD CHAIR

Elizabeth Waters, Knoxville, TN

SECRETARY

Dave Lochbaum, Chattanooga, TN

TREASURER

Brita Larsen Clark, Candler, NC

BOARD MEMBERS

Donna Glee Williams, Balsam, NC

Lianna Costantino, Sylva, NC

Lauren Loiacono, Asheville, NC

Joanne Sweeney, Sautee Nacoochee GA

GENERATIONAL RADIATION IMPACT PROJECT is a member-based organization. Members are much like Trustees, and serve by approval of the member group without term limits. If you would like more information about GRIP members, please contact us: GRIPcom2025@gmail.com.

We are also grateful to the following professionals whose work and dedication has inspired this project. Thank you.

Dr. Rosalie Bertell, Dr. Donnell Boardman, Dr. Ian Fairlie, Dr. John Gofman, Dr. Judith Johnsrud, Dr. Tim Mousseau, Dr. Marvin Resnikoff, Dr. David Richardson, Dr. Alice Stewart and Dr. Steve Wing.

We have found new inspiration in collaborations with Cindy Folkers, Marco Kaltofan, Dr Amanda Nichols, Cynthia Madansky and many other allies.

This work is supported by many. THANK YOU.

Enduring appreciation for Founding Board Member, the late Timothea Howard, Washington, DC, and Cornerstone donor, the late Reverend Posy Jackson.

GRIP could not do the work does without the support and The Fire Monkey Fund at RSF Social Finance.

THANK YOU!

We are pleased and proud to have a new name!

Growing out of original work by the Gender and Radiation Impact Project (GRIP) founded in 2017--we are now, in 2025, the GENERATIONAL RADIATION IMPACT PROJECT. Our work now picks up the baton, shining in the collaborative work with so many others, and support from many more. We are still GRIP, in acronym, and in commitments.

In its first seven years, GRIP work was inspired by the landmark findings by founder, Mary Olson, that biological sex and exposure-age have major, and compounding impacts on the outcome of ionizing radiation exposure. In the first phase, GRIP’s work was primarily science communication—teaching the findings that exposure to ionizing radiation harms children more than adults, and females more than males.

GRIP was honored to provide education that led to the development of the Humanitarian pledge on the Humanitarian Consequences of Nuclear Weapons, and later the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). As the Treaty moves ahead, GRIP has turned to the creating better radiation protection for all. Protection must address disproportionate radiation harm to girls and women—and so be centered on those most harmed. Nonetheless, in that process, it has become clear that there are additional challenges to protection that are universal.

We have turned a corner, are starting a new phase, and invite you to check us out!

This new chapter, emphasizes the multiple generations since the fission was packaged in the 1940’s. Intergenerational and cumulative impacts have come from the nuclear industrial complex and the many radioactive materials it moves, creates, and constantly releases to our environment. All of us are impacted to one extent or another by radioactive pollution of our air, food and water thanks to these industrial activities, over and above the natural radiation in our earth and sky.

GRIP is teaching about the human lifecycle and how environmental radiation impacts in all life stages, and looking at radiation itself from a wider lens.

GRIP is opening to a new growth phase. In November, 2025 the GRIP Board of Directors supported a new fundraising initiative to expand the capacity we have to develop this new work. Stay tuned!

It is the commitment to radiation protection that is aligned with those most-harmed that brings us to a focus on generational, and intergenerational impacts of radiation exposure, particularly from radioactive pollution. We have a wider path, and a new name. Join us!

Generational Radiation Impact Project is incorporated in North Carolina, and recognized by the IRS as a charitable organization under section 501(c )(3) of the tax code. Contributions are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.