Workshop Participants

David Christiani, M.D., M.P.H., M.S.

Dr. David Christiani received his Degree of Medicine from Tufts University in 1976, followed by Masters Degrees in Public Health and Physiology from the Harvard University School of Public Health. He did his postgraduate medical training at Boston City Hospital and the Massachusetts General Hospital. He is now Professor of Occupational Medicine and Epidemiology and Director of the Occupational Health Program at the Harvard School of Public Health. He is Professor of Medicine at the Harvard Medical School and Physician, Pulmonary and Critical Care Unit at MGH, where he directs the Molecular Epidemiology Research Group. His research interests include environmental and molecular epidemiology. He has led several major research projects in the United States, including projects on molecular studies of lung cancer, esophageal, bladder, and skin cancers, pollutant-induced cancers, as well as acute lung injury and chronic obstructive lung disease. He is a leader in research on gene-environment interactions. In addition, he has developed extensive cooperative ties with industrializing countries in Asia, Africa, and Central America since the early of 1980s, and has led and conducted many studies on environmental and occupational health in these countries. Dr. Christiani is at the forefront of the new discipline of molecular epidemiology and the development and adaptation of epidemiologic and laboratory techniques to the conditions to international studies.

Ana Diez Roux, M.D., PhD, M.P.H.

Dr. Diez Roux is an epidemiologist whose work has focused on the examination of the social determinants of health. Originally trained as a pediatrician in Buenos Aires, Argentina, she received an M.P.H. and a PhD in Health Policy from the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health. She is currently Associate Professor of Epidemiology at the University of Michigan. Dr. Diez Roux's empirical work has focused on the social determinants of cardiovascular disease with special emphasis on the examination of how residential environments shape the distribution of cardiovascular risk. She has also published on the methodological challenges that arise from the need to integrate population-level and individual-level factors as well social and biological factors in understanding the causes of disease. Recent work focuses on the role of residential environments, environmental exposures and psychosocial stress in the development of atherosclerosis. Dr. Diez Roux has been a leader in the application of multilevel analysis in epidemiology and in the investigation of neighborhood health effects. She is currently Co-Director of the Robert Wood Johnson Health and Society Scholar's Program at the University of Michigan and Associate Director of the Center for Social Epidemiology and Population Health.

David Hunter, M.B.B.S., Sc.D.

David Hunter is Vincent L. Gregory Professor in Cancer Prevention in the Departments of Epidemiology and Nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health. His main research interests include working with colleagues in the Nurses' Health Studies, Health Professionals Follow-up Study and the Physicians' Health Study, to conduct nested cases-control studies of cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and osteoporosis. Laboratory collaborators include Karl Kelsey with he is studying polymorphisms in carcinogen-metabolizing genes and breast and colon cancer, and Mary-Claire King of the University of Washington with whom he is studying BRCA1 and breast cancer.

Dr. Hunter is also studying the causes of cancer, particularly breast, colon, and skin cancer in two large prospective cohorts of U.S. nurses. In the Nurses' Health Study I, his team is conducting a prospective study of the association of blood organochlorine pollutant levels and risk of breast cancer. In the Nurses' Health Study II, a younger cohort, they are studying breast cancer risk factors, including oral contraceptive use, among mainly premenopausal women. To expand the range of dietary intake observable in any individual cohort, as well as the power to detect small risks, Dr. Hunter and colleagues are pooling the primary data from nine large prospective studies of diet and cancer.

They anticipate this will help introduce some consensus in diet and cancer prevention recommendations. His team has been conducting studies of risk factors for HIV acquisition in Kenya and Tanzania, and now, in collaboration with Wafaie Fawzi and members of the Department of Nutrition and Muhimbili Medical Center, they are studying the relation of nutritional factors in HIV progression and perinatal transmission. Dr. Hunter received his B.S.and M.B. from the University of Sydney and his Sc.D. in 1988 from Harvard University.

Michael Fortun, PhD

Dr. Fortun is a historian of science who works on the current sciences of molecular biology and human genetics, and is presently an assistant professor in the Department of Science and Technology Studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. He was a member in the School of Social Science of the Institute for Advanced Study for the year 2000-2001. Dr. Fortun’s PhD thesis (History of Science, Harvard 1993) was a historical and sociological account of the Human Genome Project in the United States. He has held postdoctoral positions in the Program on Science, Technology, and Society at MIT, and the Department of Science and Technology Studies at Cornell University.

Since then, Dr. Fortun has been researching the rapid emergence of the commercial genomics sector, in the U.S. and internationally. Since 1998 he has been engaged in a study of deCODE Genetics in Iceland, the main subject of his forthcoming book from the University of California Press, Promising Genomics. His current research, involving oral history and ethnographic interviews, analyzes how genomics has changed scientific research in the plant sciences (with a focus on the study of nitrogen fixation) and in toxicology.

He is a Founding Fellow and former Executive Director of the Institute for Science and Interdisciplinary Studies (ISIS) at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts. ISIS is a non-profit organization building new collaborations among scientists, science analysts, and citizens, responding to urgent concerns emerging from new developments in scientific research, environmental crises, biomedicine, and agricultural production.

Most recently, Dr. Fortun co-authored with physicist Herbert J. Bernstein, Muddling Through: Pursuing Science and Truths in the 21st Century, written for a popular audience and published in October 1998 by Counterpoint Press.

Sharon Kardia, PhD

Dr. Kardia is an Associate Professor of Epidemiology at the University of Michigan. She is Director of the Public Health Genetics Program, Co-Director of the Michigan Center for Genomics and Public Health, and Co-Director of the Life Sciences & Society Program housed in the University of Michigan School of Public Health.

Dr. Kardia received her doctoral degree in human genetics from the University of Michigan, was a post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology and continued post-doctoral work in the Department of Human Genetics. She joined the faculty of the University of Michigan School of Public Health in 1998.

Dr. Kardia’s main research interests are in the genomic epidemiology of cardiovascular disease and its risk factors. She is particularly interested in gene-environment, gene-gene interactions, and in modeling complex relationships between genetic variation, environmental variation, and risk of common chronic diseases. Her work also includes using gene expression and proteomic profiles for molecular classification of tumors and survival analysis in lung and ovarian cancers. As a part of her Center activity, Dr. Kardia is also actively working on moving genetics into chronic disease programs in state departments of health. Dr. Kardia is an active member of three National Academy of Science Committees (Genomics and the Public’s Health in the 21 st Century, Assessing Interactions Among Social, Behavioral, and Genetic Factors and Health, and Applications of Toxicogenomics Technologies to Predictive Toxicology).

Patricia King, J.D.

Patricia King joined the Georgetown law faculty in 1974, and has also served since 1990 as an adjunct professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management of the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University. In addition, she holds appointments as a faculty affiliate of Georgetown's Kennedy Institute of Ethics and as a fellow of the Hastings Center, a bioethics research institute. Her scholarship and teaching range across the fields of law, medicine, ethics, and public policy, with a particular focus on ethical questions in biomedical science. Her recent publications address such topics as race and bioethics, ethical and policy dimensions of stem cell research, and the ethics of experimentation involving human subjects, and she is co-author of the legal casebook "Law, Science and Medicine." A trustee of Wheaton College since 1989, she chaired Wheaton's board from 2000 to 2005. She is the current vice chair of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, which focuses on health care issues, and she previously served as vice chair of the Russell Sage Foundation, a leading organization in social science research, where she was a trustee from 1981 to 1991. She is a member of both the American Law Institute and the Institute of Medicine, on whose Council she served from 1998 to 2001, and she is a past member of the advisory committee to the director of the National Institutes of Health (1990-94). She served on the Committee to Visit Harvard Law School from 1975 to 1981. In 2005, Professor King was elected as a Fellow of Harvard College to be part of the seven-member Harvard Corporation, formally known as the President and Fellows of Harvard College.

A frequently sought-after expert on questions of ethics and public policy posed by developments in science and technology, King has served over the years on numerous national advisory bodies formed to address such issues. They have included, among others, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) Committee on Assessing the System for Protecting Human Research Subjects (2001-02), the National Research Council (NRC)/IOM Committee on Biological and Biomedical Application of Stem Cells (2001), the President's Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments (1994-95), the National Institutes of Health's Embryo Research Panel (co-chair for policy, 1994), the Ethics, Legal and Social Issues Working Group of the NIH's Human Genome Center (1989-95), the NIH's Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee (1979-81), and the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research (1974-78), which produced the seminal "Belmont Report." In addition, she chaired the NRC/IOM Committee on the Assessment of Family Violence Interventions (1994-98). 

Early in her career, King was a lawyer in the federal government, serving as special assistant to the chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (1969-71), deputy director of the Office of Civil Rights of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (1971-74), and deputy assistant attorney general in the Civil Division of the Department of Justice (1980-81). 

Teri Manolio, M.D., PhD

Dr. Manolio is Senior Advisor to the Director for Population Genomics of the National Human Genome Research Institute in Bethesda, Maryland. She received her medical degree from the University of Maryland in 1980 and trained in internal medicine at Boston City Hospital, D.C. General Hospital, and Johns Hopkins University, where she earned a Master of Health Sciences degree in epidemiology. She joined the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) in 1987 and has been heavily involved in NHLBI’s large-scale cohort studies such as the Cardiovascular Health Study and the Framingham Heart Study, as well as efforts to increase prospective observational research in genetic determinants of disease. In 1998 she returned to Hopkins to pursue a doctoral degree in human genetics/genetic epidemiology which was awarded in 2001. She moved to NHGRI in 2005 to lead efforts in applying genomic technologies to population research, by developing collaborative multi-disciplinary research programs and shared research resources in population genomics.

Michael A. McGeehin, PhD, M.S.P.H.

Dr. McGeehin is a Distinguished Consultant at the Centers for Disease Control and serves as Director, Division of Environmental Hazards and Health Effects of the National Center for Environmental Health of the CDC. He is also an Adjunct Professor at Emory University School of Public Health. Dr. McGeehin earned his Master’s degree in public health from the University of Colorado and his PhD in environmental health from Colorado State University. Dr. McGeehin has spoken and published manuscripts on a wide variety of environmental health issues including, among others, lead poisoning in children, drinking water contamination, mercury poisoning, environmental health tracking, cancer clusters, asthma, heat wave morbidity and mortality, and global climate change. Dr. McGeehin also served as co-chair of the Health Sector of the National Assessment of Global Climate Change.

 David B. Peden, M.D., M.S.

Dr. David Blaine Peden is Professor of Pediatrics & Medicine, Adjunct Professor of Epidemiology, Associate Chair for Research in the Department of Pediatrics, Chief, Division of Immunology & Infectious Disease and Director, Center for Environmental Medicine, Asthma & Lung Biology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. As Chief of the Division of Immunology & Infectious Disease, Dr. Peden maintains the Children’s and Adolescent Allergy Clinic in the North Carolina Children’s Hospital. As Director of the UNC Center for Environmental Medicine, Asthma and Lung Biology, he conducts and oversees a number of clinical investigations examining the effect of challenge and exposure to a number of environmental agents, including ozone, endotoxin, diesel exhaust and other particulates. Dr. Peden’s group has extensive expertise in evaluating persons for asthma, allergies and lung disease, using spirometry, methacholine challenge, analysis of induced sputum and allergen skin testing.

Dr. Peden received his Doctor of Medicine degree from West Virginia University and subsequently received training in Pediatrics at West Virginia University Medical Center. His fellowship training in allergy and immunology was completed at the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in Bethesda, Maryland. Dr. Peden is board certified in pediatrics, allergy and immunology and clinical laboratory immunology.

Dr. Peden is currently principal or co-principal investigator for over $3.5 million of grant funded research. His major research interest have been: 1) pollution and environmental factors in allergic disease and asthma; 2) the role of rhinitis and sinusitis in asthma; 3) evaluation of novel therapeutic agents for asthma, allergies and airway disorders; 4) airway antioxidant and oxidant physiology; and 5) granulocyte function in airway disease.

Joan Reibman, M.D.

 Joan Reibman, MD is an Associate Professor of Medicine and Environmental Medicine at New York University (NYU) School of Medicine where she is Director of the NYU/Bellevue Asthma Center. Dr Reibman received her undergraduate degree from Barnard College, and her medical degree from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She completed her residency training in Internal Medicine and Pulmonary subspecialty training at Bellevue Hospital, New York University.

Dr. Reibman is Medical Director of the Bellevue Hospital Asthma Clinic, a longstanding program in the largest public hospital in New York City. This program, which has served thousands patients, was developed to integrate state-of-the art care for an indigent urban community with patient oriented research. Her research has focused on the role of gaseous and particulate pollutants on respiratory health outcomes in this population and on the development of an asthma registry for case-control genetic studies of severe asthma. She is currently involved in community-based participatory research on the respiratory health effects of the destruction of the World Trade Center in the surrounding residential community. This clinical work is complemented by investigations on ambient particulate matter-induced airway immune responses with a focus on epithelial-dendritic cell interactions.

 Lawrence W. Reiter, PhD

Dr. Lawrence W. Reiter serves as the Director of the National Exposure Research Laboratory (NERL), one of three national laboratories within the EPA. The NERL conducts research and development to improve methods, measurements, and models to assess and predict exposures of humans and ecosystems to harmful pollutants and other conditions in air, water, soil and food. The Laboratory is comprised of six research divisions located in North Carolina, Ohio, Georgia and Nevada.

Dr. Reiter joined the EPA Health Effects Research Laboratory (HERL) in 1973. From 1978 through 1988 he served as the first Director of EPA’s Neurotoxicology Division, establishing a major research program in neurotoxicology. In 1988, he was appointed as Director of HERL with responsibility for EPA’s health research program. From 1995 to 2005, Dr. Reiter was the Director of the National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory (NHEERL). The NHEERL develops methods, models and data to assess the health and ecological effects of pollutants and other anthropogenic stressors.

Dr. Reiter serves on the advisory panels of numerous organizations, both within EPA as well as in the scientific community, including the World Health Organization and the National Academy of Sciences.

He is the recipient of a number of awards, including the Presidential Distinguished Executive Award for leadership in defining and strengthening the vital role of science at EPA, as well as the Presidential Meritorious Executive Award, both presented by the White House in recognition of outstanding achievement in public service. He has served on the editorial boards for a number of toxicology journals,

held adjunct appointments in toxicology at several universities (e.g., University of North Carolina School of Medicine), and has been elected to various positions in national scientific organizations.

Dr. Reiter received a B.S. in Chemistry from Rockhurst College in Kansas City, MO in 1965 and a PhD in Neuropharmacology from the University of Kansas Medical Center Department of Pharmacology in 1970. Prior to joining EPA, he completed a three-year postdoctoral fellowship in the Environmental Toxicology Department at the University of California/Davis.

 John Ruffin, PhD

Dr. John Ruffin is the Director of the National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities. He is a well-respected leader and visionary in the field of health disparities. He has devoted his professional life to improving the health status of minority populations in the United States and to developing and supporting educational programs for minority researchers and health care practitioners. His success has been due in large part to his ability to motivate others and gain the support of key individuals and organizations, as well as to his expertise in strategic planning, administration, and the development of numerous collaborative partnerships. For over 15 years, he has led the transformation of the NIH minority health and health disparities research agenda from a programmatic concept to an institutional reality. He has served as the Associate Director for Minority Programs, Office of Minority Programs; and the Associate Director for Research on Minority Health, Office of Research on Minority Health. As the NIH federal official for minority health disparities research, through multi-faceted collaborations, he has planned and brought to fruition the largest biomedical research program in the nation to promote minority health and other health disparities research and training. He has spearheaded the development of the first comprehensive Health Disparities Strategic Plan at NIH. His efforts have impacted local, regional, national and even international communities and have resulted in a growing portfolio of:

• Research, training, and capacity building programs
• Health professionals and scientists of racial/ethnic minority populations
• Centers of Excellence conducting cutting-edge health disparities research
• Endowment awards to academic institutions, and
• Community-based participatory research initiatives

Dr. Ruffin has been committed to conceptualizing, developing and implementing innovative programs that create new learning opportunities and exposure for minority and health disparity students and faculty, as well as minority-serving institutions. In his quest to eliminate health disparities, the hallmark of his approach is to foster and expand strategic partnerships in alliance with the NIH Institute and Center directors, various Federal and state agencies, community organizations, academic institutions, private sector leaders, and international governments and non-governmental organizations. His life-long commitment to academic excellence, improving minority health and promoting training and health disparities research, has earned him distinguished national awards. Dr. Ruffin has received an honorary doctor of science degree from Spelman College, Tuskegee University, and the University of Massachusetts, Boston. He has been recognized by: the National Medical Association, the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science; the Association of American Indian Physicians, the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities; the Society of Black Academic Surgeons; and the National Science Foundation. The John Ruffin Scholarship Program is an honor symbolic of his legacy for academic excellence bestowed by the Duke University Talent Identification Program. He has also received the Samuel L. Kountz Award for his significant contribution to increasing minority access to organ and tissue transplantation; the NIH Director’s Award; the National Hispanic Leadership Award; Beta Beta Beta Biological Honor Society Award; the Department of Health and Human Services’ Special Recognition Award; and the U.S. Presidential Merit Award.

Peggy M. Shepard

Peggy Shepard is executive director and co-founder of West Harlem Environmental Action, Inc. (WE ACT). Founded in 1988, WE ACT was New York’s first environmental justice organization created to improve environmental health and quality of life in communities of color. WE ACT advances its mission through research, public education, advocacy, organizing, government accountability, litigation, legislative affairs and sustainable economic development on issues of land use, waterfront development, brownfields redevelopment; transportation and air pollution, open space and environmental health.

Ms. Shepard is a former Democratic District Leader, who represented West Harlem from 1985 to April 1993, and served as President of the National Women’s Political Caucus-Manhattan from 1993-1997. From January 2001-2003, Ms Shepard served as the first female chair of the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council (NEJAC) to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and is co-chair of the Northeast Environmental Justice Network. She is a member of the National Advisory Environmental Health Sciences Council of the National Institutes of Health and of the Environmental Justice Advisory Committee to the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation. Ms. Shepard is also a co-investigator of the Columbia Children’s Environmental Health Center’s Community Outreach and Translational Research Core and community partner of the NIEHS Center for Environmental Health In Northern Manhattan at Columbia. She is Principal Investigator on an NIEHS grant to develop a model of ethical community review of research.

Ms. Shepard has served as a guest editor of a special supplement of Environmental Health Perspectives, Advancing Environmental Justice Through Community-Based Participatory Research, published April 2002. Ms Shepard is co-author of The Challenge of Preventing Environmentally Related Disease in Young Children: Community-Based Research in New York City; Airborne Concentrations of PM (2.5) and Diesel Particles on Harlem Sidewalks: A Pilot Study; Diesel Exhaust Exposure Among Adolescents In Harlem: A Community-Driven Study, and a contributor to Urban Air Pollution and Health Inequities: A Workshop Report, all published in Environmental Health Perspectives from 1999 to 2002. She has also authored Issues of Community Empowerment, and The Federal Advisory Committee’s Proposal For Justice, Fordham Environmental Law Journal, 1996 and 1999.

Ms. Shapard has received numerous awards celebrating her community service, grassroots leadership and advocacy. Such as the prestigious 10th h Annual Heinz Award For the Environment in 2003. Awards received in the last ten years include the Community Service Award from West Harlem Group Assistance, the Feinstone Environmental Award through SUNY at Syracuse, the 2004 Dean’s Distinguished Service Award from the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health, the Rachel Carson Awardfrom Audubon, the Union Square Award administered by the Fund for The City of New York, the 1998 Earth Day Award for Excellence in Environmental Advocacy from Earth Day NY, the Susan B. Anthony Award from the National Organization of Women (NOW) NYC Chapter, and an advocacy award from the Gay and Lesbian Independent Democrats. Ms. Shepard is a board member of the national and NYS Leagues of Conservation Voters, Environmental Defense, NY Earth Day, Audubon NY, the Children’s Environmental Health Network, and Healthy Schools Network, Inc. She is an advisory board member of the Bellevue Occupational and Environmental Medicine Clinic; the Harlem Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention; and Mt. Sinai’s Children’s Environmental Health Center.

Edwin Silverman, M.D., PhD

Dr. Edwin Silverman is a pulmonologist and genetic epidemiologist whose research focuses on the genetics of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and asthma. He is the Principal Investigator of the Boston Early-Onset COPD Study, which has demonstrated familial aggregation for COPD-related phenotypes, found an increased risk for severe, early-onset COPD in women, and provided the first linkage analysis results in COPD pedigrees. He also leads the Alpha 1-Antitrypsin Genetic Modifier Study, a multicenter study designed to identify genetic factors contributing to the markedly variable development of lung disease in alpha 1-antitrypsin deficient individuals, and the NETT Genetics Ancillary Study. In addition to his work on COPD genetics, Dr. Silverman collaborates on a variety of asthma genetics projects, including the CAMP Genetics Ancillary Study and the Costa Rica Asthma Genetics Study. He is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, and he is the Co-Director of the COPD Center at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Elizabeth J. Thomson, DNSc , MS , RN, CGC, FAAN

Elizabeth J. Thomson, DNSc, MS, RN, CGC., FAAN, is the Program Director, Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications Research, National Human Genome Research Institute, National Institutes of Health. Elizabeth Thomson received a diploma (1971) and Bachelor of Science in Nursing (1975) from St. Luke's Hospital School of Nursing and Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa and a Master of Science degree (1983) in Preventive Medicine and Environmental Health from the University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa. In 2005, she received a Doctoral Degree in Nursing Science from the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing, Baltimore, MD.

After beginning her career in maternal child nursing, in 1976, Dr. Thomson began providing genetic counseling services. In 1980, she became the coordinator of the statewide genetic services program at the University of Iowa, a position she held until the end of 1992. In 1981, Dr. Thomson became one of the first of 169 health professionals in the United States to become board certified in genetic counseling by the American Board of Medical Genetics.

In 1993, Dr. Thomson accepted a position at the National Institutes of Health where she currently serves as Program Director, Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications Research of the National Human Genome Research Institute. In 1998, she served as a consultant to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention assisting them in establishing their Office of Genetics and Public Health. In 1999, she served as a consultant to the National Cancer Institute in the formation of their nationwide Cancer Genetics Network.

Dr. Thomson has been actively involved in a number of both genetics and nursing organizations, including the American Academy of Nursing, the American Society of Human Genetics, and the American College of Medical Genetics. In 1984, she co-founded the Genetics Nurse Network, which in 1989 became the International Society of Nurses in Genetics. In addition to publishing a number of papers regarding genetics; the Human Genome Project; genetic counseling; nursing roles in genetics; ethical, legal, and social issues related to genetics research; and the clinical integration of genetic technologies; she has given numerous presentations about these topics at local, regional and national conferences. Dr. Thomson co-edited a book, "Women and Prenatal Testing: Facing the Challenges of Genetic Technology," which was published by Ohio State Press (1994) and co-authored several papers published in JAMA (1995, 1997, 1997, 1998) regarding informed consent for genetics research using stored tissues, follow up recommendations for those found to have inherited breast, ovarian, and colon cancer risks, and genetic testing for hereditary hemochromatosis. She also co-edited a book (Oxford University Press, 2000), titled Genetics and Public Health.

Dr. Thomson has received numerous honors and awards, including a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Public Health Service Award and several National Institutes of Health Special Service Awards. In 1997, she received the NIH Director=s Award and the International Society of Nurses in Genetics Founders= Award for Research and Scholarship. In 1998, she received the Edward Rhodes Stitt Lecture Award from Dr. David Satcher, Surgeon General of the United States and President of the Association of the Military Surgeons of the United States and was elected to the National Academy of Practice. In 1999, Dr. Thomson was elected to the American Academy of Nursing. In 2003, Dr. Thomson was given an Award for Distinguished Service by Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, Tommy G. Thompson.

 Scott Weiss, M.D., M.S.

Dr. Weiss is currently Director of Respiratory, Environmental, and Genetic Epidemiology at the Channing Laboratory, and Professor at Harvard Medical School. In this capacity, he leads a 25 investigator, 120 person research group involved in examining the origins of environmental exposures and genetic risk factors for the development of asthma and COPD. He is responsible for administrative aspects of this large program in respiratory and genetic epidemiology as well as his own research. He has led many multidisciplinary cooperative studies of asthma and COPD and he has international research experience in China, Norway, Mexico, Costa Rica, and the Netherlands.

Dr. Weiss’ long-standing research interests have been in the area of environmental and genetic risk factors and natural history of asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). He is the principal investigator or co-investigator on a total of six separate NHLBI-funded proposals in the area of the genetics of asthma and COPD.

Samuel H. Wilson, M.D.

Samuel H. Wilson is Deputy Director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), National Institutes of Health (NIH). Dr. Wilson came to NIEHS in this capacity in 1996, where he has worked to foster basic biomedical research and disease prevention research. He has helped develop NIEHS’ programs in genetic susceptibility, functional genomics, children’s health, minority institutions’ research, health disparities research, and community involvement. Dr. Wilson has strengthened partnerships between NIEHS and other Federal agencies concerned with environmental health and with the private sector. He worked with the Institute of Medicine to develop a Roundtable promoting discussions on long-term planning and a broader working definition of environmental health, and he worked with the National Research Council to develop a Committee addressing issues relevant to toxicogenomics.

Dr. Wilson received his graduate and postdoctoral training in medicine and biochemistry, respectively, at Harvard Medical School and the NIH. He began his career as a Principal Investigator in 1970 at the NIH. In November 1991, Dr. Wilson moved to the extramural community to create a center focused in the area of genetic toxicology, structural biology, and functional genomics.

Dr. Wilson’s recent activities include membership on numerous Federal agency advisory groups. He has served as a scientific advisor to several private foundations involved in biomedical research. He was chair of the 2001 Mammalian DNA Repair Gordon Research Conference and co-chair of the 2002/2004 US- Japan and 2003/2005 US-EU conferences on DNA Repair. He is Associate Editor of DNA Repair and a member of several editorial boards. Dr. Wilson has authored over 300 research publications and has edited four reference volumes. He has authored over 30 administrative publications since 1998.

Harold Zenick, Ph.D

Dr. Harold Zenick is Acting Director, National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory (NHEERL) in the Office of Research and Development in the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Dr. Zenick earned a PhD in Physiological Psychology from the University of Missouri ( Columbia). He also completed a Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Toxicology at the University of Cincinnati. Before coming to EPA, Dr. Zenick spent 13 years in academia with the Department of Environmental Health in the University of Cincinnati Medical School, preceded by an appointment at New Mexico Highlands University. Dr. Zenick serves as EPA's liaison to the NIEHS's and the National Center for Environmental Health/CDC's Advisory Councils/Boards. He has had a leading role in several emerging programs at EPA including efforts to develop better indicators of public heath impact of environmental decisions and the impact of the environment of the rapidly growing, aging population. He also chairs two cross-Agency workgroups: one on the Futures of Toxicity Testing; the other on Biomonitoring as well as serving as US Co-Chair of the Environmental Health Workgroup under the binational US-Mexico Border 2012 Program. He has received numerous Agency awards including the prestigious Presidential Meritorious Executive Rank Award and the ORD Statesmanship award. Dr. Zenick has participated on a number of prominent National and Federal work groups that include having served as co-chair of the Health and Environment Subcommittee under the auspices of the Office of Science, Technology and Policy and now as co-chair of the interagency Pharmaceuticals in the Environment Work Group within the Toxics and Risk Subcommittee. Dr. Zenick has over 100 publications. His current interests include integrating human health and ecological risk assessment, exploring environmental justice issues in the context of health disparities and healthy communities, and the application of emerging computational and molecule sciences in improving risk assessment practices.