Extramural Research
Presenter Biosketches
Phil Brown
Hospitals for a Healthy Environment
Phil Brown is University Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Health Sciences at Northeastern University in Boston. He has published widely in environmental sociology and environmental health, including his most recent book, “Contested Illnesses: Citizens, Science, and Health Social Movements.” He has extensive experience in research ethics through his role in the NIH-funded Collaborative Initiative for Research Ethics and Environmental Health and the NSF-funded Northeast Ethics Education Project. He was on the planning committee for the 2012 annual grantees meeting of the Children’s Environmental Health Centers. Under contract to Northeastern, Dr. Brown continues as Director of the Brown Superfund Research Program Community Engagement Core and co-Director of its Research Translation Core. Currently, Dr. Brown directs the Community Outreach and Translation Core of Brown’s Children’s Environmental Health Center (P20) , and serves on its Internal Advisory Committee, also under subcontract to Northeastern. As Director of Northeastern’s Social Science Environmental Health Research Institute, he trains faculty, graduate students, and postdocs in interdisciplinary environmental health research, and many of them are involved in CEHC activities.
Alyssa Creighton
Engaging Community Partners for Effective Development of Outreach Strategies
Alyssa Creighton received her Master of Public Health in environmental health policy from Columbia University. She is the Program Coordinator for the Community Outreach and Translation Core at the Columbia Center for Children’s Environmental Health. Her work includes collaborating with community partners, building educational materials and translating the findings of the Center’s researchers. Previous experience includes leading community asthma education workshops.
Monique DePaepe
Human Fetal Lung Xenograft as Model of Antenatal Arsenic Exposure
Our research focuses on the regulation of alveolar remodeling in normal and pathological lung development. We are particularly interested in deciphering the role and regulation of apoptosis (programmed cell death) and angiogenesis (microvascular development) in alveolarization. We anticipate that these studies will contribute to the development of novel therapeutic strategies for bronchopulmonary dysplasia, a chronic lung disease of preterm infants characterized by arrested alveolar development
Dana C. Dolinoy, Ph.D.
Early Exposure to Bisphenol A and Lead: Effects on Metabolic Homeostasis and the Epigenome
Dr. Dolinoy serves as the John G. Searle Assistant Professor of Environmental Health Sciences at the University of Michigan School of Public Health (UM SPH). Dr. Dolinoy leads the Environmental Epigenetics and Nutrition Laboratory, which investigates how nutritional and environmental factors interact with epigenetic gene regulation to shape health and disease. Her laboratory is using state-of-the-art technology to investigate the role of early exposures on epigenomic profiles in the mouse and human in order to identify species, dose, and tissue specific alterations in DNA methylation and histone profiles associated with metabolic disorders later-in-life. Dr. Dolinoy serves as an investigator in the EPA/NIEHS-funded Formative Children’s Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Center (P20 ES018171-01/RD834800) on perinatal exposures, epigenetics, child obesity & sexual maturation, investigating early exposure to BPA, lead, and phthalates, epigenetics, and later-in-life body weight and hormone outcomes. She also plays a leadership role in UM’s NIEHS P30 Core Center, Lifestage Exposures and Adult Diseases (P30 ES017885), and serves as a member of the Children’s Working Initiative of the University of Michigan Institute for Clinical and Health Research (MICHR) Clinical and Translational Science Award.
Elaine Faustman, Ph.D.
Pesticides and Children's Environmental Health
Dr. Faustman is Professor in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences at the University of Washington School of Public Health and Community Medicine and Director of the Institute for Risk Analysis and Risk Communication. She is Co-PI of the NIEHS and NSF funded Pacific Northwest Center for Human Health and Ocean Studies at UW and Director of the Reproductive and Developmental Research Core of the UW Center for Ecogenetics and Environmental Health.
Kim Harley, Ph.D.
Bisphenol A and Children’s Health: Results from the CHAMACOS Study
Kim Harley, Ph.D. is an Associate Adjunct Professor of Maternal and Child Health at the University of California, Berkeley. She is a reproductive and perinatal epidemiologist whose research focuses on the association between endocrine disrupting chemicals and child development, including neurodevelopment, obesity, and onset of puberty. Her work has focused on the reproductive and developmental effects of Bisphenol A, PBDEs, DDT, and organophosphate pesticides. Dr. Harley has spent several years investigating the effects of environmental chemical exposures to mothers and children living in a migrant farm worker community. She is an Associate Director of the CHAMACOS Study, a longitudinal cohort study of Latina mothers and children living in the agricultural Salinas Valley, California. Children in the CHAMACOS study have been followed from before birth until 12 years of age to determine the impact of environmental exposures on their growth, neurodevelopment, and health. Dr. Harley is the principal investigator of grant to examine the role of early life BPA exposure on children's health and development in this cohort.
Amy D. Kyle, Ph.D., M.P.H.
Aligning the Planets: Working with Networks to Achieve Structural Change
Dr. Kyle holds research and teaching appointments in the Environmental Health Sciences Division at the School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley and is a co-investigator of the BCEPHT, a co-investigator on a multi-year project to develop measures reflecting children's environmental health, and director of the research translation core for the UC Berkeley Superfund Basic Research Program. Early in her career, she spent 13 years in public service in environmental protection, natural resources management, and public health and retains a keen interest in improving public health practice. Her research currently focuses on translation of scientific results for policy and stakeholder audiences; development of methods to represent multiple exposures and multiple effects; approaches to integrate expert and lay views into analytic-deliberative processes relevant to policy discussions with technical elements; policy approaches relevant to persistent pollutants; and children's environmental health. She teaches graduate students in environmental health science disciplines about the role of science, as well as other factors, in policy and how to communicate with non-technical audiences. She works with a variety of non-governmental and public interest organizations and serves on the California Breast Cancer Research Council, the board of counselors for the Environment Section of the American Public Health Association, and the Committee on Emerging Contaminants of the National Academy of Sciences.
Andrew H. Liu, MD Andrew H. Liu, M.D., is the Training Program Director and an Associate Professor in Pediatric Allergy & Immunology at the National Jewish Medical & Research Center and the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in Denver. He serves as the Pediatric Asthma & Allergy Consultant to the Health & Hospitals System for the City & county of Denver. In addition, he runs teaching clinics at National Jewish, Denver Health, and The Children’s Hospital of Denver. Dr. Liu researches the immune development underlying asthma and allergies in young children, seeking early intervention strategies for therapy and prevention. He is an investigator for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in several research programs in this field. These include a recent NIH Career Development Awards on “Endotoxin and Asthma Prevention in Young Children,” and several NIH-funded intervention studies for childhood asthma: Childhood Asthma Management Program (CAMP); Childhood Asthma Prevention Study (CAPS); and Prevention of Early Asthma in Kids study (PEAK). Dr. Liu has written articles for such peer-reviewed journals as The Lancet, Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, Journal of Experimental Medicine, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology, and a member of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology and the American Association of Immunologists. Dr. Liu received his medical degree from the University of Massachusetts Medical School and completed his Internship and Residency in Pediatrics at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. He completed his Fellowships in Allergy & Immunology and in Clinical & Laboratory Immunology at the National Jewish Medical and Research Center.
Daniel S. Madrigal
Engaging Children and Adolescents in Environmental Health Research
Mr. Madrigal is the community outreach coordinator for the Center for Environmental Research and Children’s Health (CERCH). Part of the Center’s work is on the environmental hazards to the Latino farmworker community in the Salinas Valley, California. The keystone project of CERCH in this community is CHAMACOS, a longitudinal birth cohort study. Mr. Madrigal coordinates various strategies to share study findings with participants, local community members, and policy makers as well as activities to increase awareness and knowledge about children’s environmental health among low income Latino communities statewide. Additionally, Mr. Madrigal acts as a liaison to communicate community needs and priorities with study researchers. Community engagement and outreach strategies have included: a community advisory board, a farmworker council, a grower council, community forums, health education presentations, puppet shows for children, a youth empowerment group, a prenatal environmental health kiosk, and a robust web presence. He holds an MPH in epidemiology and biostatistics from the School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley, and has previous experience as a health educator in similar communities.
Carmen J Marsit, Ph.D.
Placental Epigenetic Biomarkers of Exposure and Health
The broad goal of Dr. Marsit's research program is to investigate gene environment interactions and their individual and combined impact on human disease, with a particular focus on the impact of the environment and lifestyle on the character of the human epigenome. His research has focused on two distinct, yet highly related biologic processes, that of environmental carcinogenesis and that of human development. In those settings, Dr. Marsit's laboratory studies how epigenetic mechanisms and their alterations are responsible, in a significant part, for cancer, adverse pregnancy outcomes, and common and rare diseases of childhood including behavioral disorders. The laboratory focuses on DNA methylation and miRNA expression as our key epigenetic mechanisms of interest.
This research aims to provide a sound molecular basis for the emerging paradigm that there are fetal origins to much of adult health and disease. Dr. Marsit's laboratory utilizes modern molecular biology and genetics applied in the setting of epidemiologic studies to study the effects of the environment on multiple facets of epigenetic regulation, and thereby is creating a novel interdisciplinary approach to understanding the pathogenesis of human disease. Paramount to meeting these objectives is creating a collaborative and multidisciplinary team of clinicians, epidemiologists, biologists, and statisticians who, by working together, are committed to combining efforts to reach these goals.
Elizabeth Matsui, M.D., M.H.S.
Rethinking the Role of Indoor Allergens in Inner-City Asthma
Dr. Matsui obtained her undergraduate and medical degrees from Vanderbilt University and went on to complete her pediatric residency at University of California at San Francisco in 1996.
After completing her residency, she spent several years practicing general pediatrics in Seattle, WA, and Baltimore. During this time, she developed an interest in asthma and allergies and subsequently began subspecialty training in Pediatric Allergy/Immunology at Johns Hopkins.
After completing her fellowship training in 2003, she joined the faculty in our division and since that time has built a research program that focuses on examining the impact of allergen exposure on allergic disease. In addition to directing this research program, she also sees patients with a variety of allergic problems, including asthma, hay fever, food allergies, and eczema.
Rob S McConnellRob S. McConnell is Professor of Preventive Medicine and Deputy Director of the NIEHS/EPA-supported Children's Environmental Health Center. His research interests include effects of air pollution on the development and exacerbation of asthma, and he is the principal investigator of a large prospective cohort study in the Children's USC Health Study to investigate these relationships. His work examining the associations between ozone and fresh traffic emissions with the development of asthma has contributed to the current policy debate on proper regulation of these exposures. Dr. McConnell is also interested in the effects of psychosocial stress and other social characteristics on asthma and on the application of new biomarkers of exposure to air pollutants in population based studies. He teaches the survey course on environmental health in the USC Masters of Public Health program.
Catherine Metayer
Parental Smoking Before and After Birth and Risk of Childhood Acute Leukemia
Dr. Metayer's research portfolio has focused on methodologic issues related to epidemiologic case-control studies, associations between environmental exposures or medical conditions and childhood leukemia, and role of folate metabolism and cancer. She is pursuing those research areas both within the California Childhood Leukemia Study (CCLS) as the Associate Director for Research, and the Childhood Leukemia International Consortium Studies (CLIC), as one of the Project Directors of the Center for Integrative Research on Childhood Leukemia and the Environment (CIRCLE), a federally funded Program Project for a Children's Environmental Health Center in the United States.
Marie Lynn Miranda, Ph.D.
Of Mice and Moms: Environment, Social Stressors and Disparities in Birth Outcomes
Marie Lynn Miranda, Ph.D., is Professor and Dean in the School of Natural Resources and Environment and Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Michigan. In addition to her administrative leadership responsibilities, Dr. Miranda directs the Children’s Environmental Health Initiative (CEHI), which is a research, education, and outreach program committed to fostering environments where all people can prosper. CEHI emphasizes the environmental health sciences and social justice components of risks borne by children in the United States and internationally. CEHI runs geospatial training programs both at the University of Michigan and nationally. CEHI is also leading a significant effort in developing geospatial informatics to support health care delivery and improvements in population health. Dr. Miranda maintains a deep and abiding personal and professional interest in social and environmental justice.
Rachel Miller, M.D.
The Epigenome and Asthma: Interactions Between Imprinted Genes and Environmental Exposures
Dr. Miller is the Associate Professor of Medicine (in Pediatrics) and Environmental Health Sciences at Columbia University. She is the Director of the Allergy and Immunology Fellowship Program. She also is Co-Deputy Director, Asthma Project Director for the Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health and the Associate Director and Lead Physician Scientist, Disease Investigation through Specialized Clinically-Oriented Ventures in Environment Research (DISCOVER) initiative sponsored by NIEHS. Her research focuses on understanding the causes of asthma.
Kari Nadeau
Mechanistic Studies on the Link Between Epigenetic Modifications in Candidate Genes and Allergy/Asthma
Dr. Kari Nadeau is Associate Professor of Pediatrics—Immunology and Allergy, and Associate Professor of Otolaryngology at Stanford University School of Medicine. She received her Bachelor of Science degree from Haverford College, an M.D. degree from Harvard Medical School and her Ph.D. from Harvard University in Biochemistry. The goal of the research in Dr. Nadeau's laboratory at Stanford is to investigate the role of ambient air exposure on the developing immune system in children, with a focus on understanding the interaction between environment and the immune system by studying detailed mechanistic studies in T cells. Dr. Nadeau has a broad background in immunology, with specific training and expertise in key research areas on T cells. She is working with Drs. Katharine Hammond and Ira Tager at the University of California, Berkeley, to link mechanistic immunology studies with epidemiological outcomes of ambient air pollution exposure. Dr. Nadeau has published more than 71 peer-reviewed papers, many of which focus on T cells and health outcomes.
Amy Padula
Traffic-related Air Pollution, Neighborhood Socioeconomic Status and Risk of Preterm Birth in the San Joaquin Valley of California
Amy Padula is a post-doctoral fellow in Pediatrics-Neonatology at Stanford University. She works with the Shaw/Carmichael research group on the Berkeley-Stanford Children’s Health and Air Pollution Study. Her research focuses on the effects of air pollution during pregnancy on adverse birth outcomes including preterm birth, low birth weight and birth defects. She is also involved with related projects on pulmonary function, social factors and causal inference statistical methods. She received her Ph.D. in Epidemiology from the University of California, Berkeley and her M.Sc. in Medical Anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania.
Isaac N. Pessah, Ph.D.Dr. Pessah obtained his B.S. in Biological Sciences from Cornell University (1977) and his Ph.D. in Toxicology from the University of Maryland in 1984. He was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California (UC) at Berkeley from 1984 to 1987, during which time he discovered a family of calcium channels termed ryanodine receptors. Since then, his research and academic interests have spanned the broad area of molecular and cellular mechanisms by which these channels regulate Ca2+ signaling in muscle, neurons and immune cells. He studies the organization and function of the macromolecular complexes regulating ryanodine-sensitive Ca2+ channels and how environmental chemicals, including PCBs, PBDEs, reactive quinone metabolites, pesticides and heavy metals influence developmental toxicity through these complexes. Members of his laboratory have been studying gene-environment interactions influencing susceptibility that are relevant to autism and related disorders using mice possessing missense mutations known to contribute susceptibility to human disease. He directs the UC Davis Center for Children’s Environmental Health and Disease Prevention. The Center is an NIEHS/US EPA funded multidisciplinary program aimed at understanding how environmental factors influence autism risk and severity. He is Professor of Toxicology and Chair of the Department of Molecular Biosciences. In addition, he is Associate Editor of NeuroToxicology, and a Board Reviewer for Environmental Health Perspectives, Journal of Neurodevelopmental Disorders and Neurotoxicology and Teratology.
Karen E. Peterson, Sc.D.Dr. Peterson is Professor and Director of the Human Nutrition Program in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences in the University of Michigan School of Public Health and Research, and Professor, Human Growth and Development at the University of Michigan (UMSPH). Trained as a nutritionist, her research focuses on the influence of adverse exposures on child growth and maturation during sensitive developmental periods and the potential mediating influence of dietary quality and lifestyle behaviors on exposure-outcome associations in multi-ethnic, low-income populations in the United States and Latin America. She has conducted extensive research on the epidemiology and evaluation of population-based interventions addressing child obesity. Dr. Peterson is the Principal Investigator of the EPA/NIEHS Formative Children’s Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Research Center at UMSPH, focused on “Perinatal exposures, epigenetics, child obesity & sexual maturation,” serves as Associate Director of the University of Michigan Nutrition and Obesity Research Center, and directs the Nutrition Assessment Laboratory of the Exposure Core of the UM Environmental Health Science Core Center, with research on “Lifestage exposures and adult disease.”
Andrew G. Rundle, Ph.D.Dr. Andrew Rundle's research focuses on physical activity and body weight with a primary interest in whether sedentary lifestyles and overweight/obesity are risk factors for cancer development. This work includes investigations of the determinants of physical activity and body weight, creating new methods to measure physical activity, molecular epidemiologic investigations of mechanisms through which physical activity may prevent cancer, and studies of associations between activity and cancer incidence. Dr. Rundle also is involved in a project investigating whether environmental exposures cause prostate cancer. In addition to his teaching responsibilities at the Mailman School, which include the Environmental Epidemiology and Molecular Epidemiology courses, he lectures at the School of Social Work and teaches epidemiology to journalism students at NYU. Dr. Rundle also is involved with IARC's international training workshops on Molecular Epidemiology.
Susan L. Schantz, Ph.D.Dr. Susan Schantz is a Professor of Environmental Toxicology in the Department of Comparative Biosciences at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. She has chaired the Interdisciplinary Environmental Toxicology Program since 1996, and she directs an Environmental Toxicology Training Grant funded by NIEHS and a Formative Children’s Environmental Health Research Center funded jointly by NIEHS and the USEPA. She is associate director of a Botanical Research Center funded by NCCAM, ODS and NCI. Her research focuses on understanding the nervous system effects of several widespread environmental contaminants including PCBs, PBDEs, phthalates and bisphenol A, and includes epidemiological studies of exposed human populations as well as laboratory studies in animal models. Recently, with funding from NIA and NCCAM, she has initiated another line of research investigating the impact of estrogens including soy isoflavones and other botanical estrogens on cognitive function during aging.
Rebecca Schmidt, Ph.D.
Nutrition and Autism Spectrum Disorders: Importance and Potential Mechanisms
Rebecca J. Schmidt, M.S., Ph.D., is Assistant Professor in the Department of Public Health Sciences, University of California – Davis, School of Medicine. Her research goal is to advance understanding of how environmental exposures, primarily those occurring during gestation, interact with genetic susceptibility to influence neurodevelopmental outcomes for children, and more broadly, reproductive health and child development. As a molecular epidemiologist, she tends to approach epidemiologic research from a mechanistic and pathways perspective. Dr. Schmidt has over 10 years of experience in epidemiological research that began at the University of Iowa College of Public Health with her dissertation that examined gene by environment interactions as risk factors for congenital malformations, including neural tube defects. She expanded this research to other neurodevelopmental outcomes as a postdoctoral fellow in the 2-year Autism Research Training Program (ARTP) at the MIND (Medical Investigation of Neurodevelopmental Disorders) Institute as part of the Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Department of the UC Davis School of Medicine in Sacramento. In 2010, she became a faculty member of the UC Davis Department of Public Health Sciences, the UC Davis Graduate Group for Epidemiology, and the MIND Institute. She teaches a course on Molecular Epidemiology and co-teaches Reproductive Epidemiology. Her research has focused largely on interaction effects between maternal nutrition and the genome in relation to autism spectrum disorders, potentially through epigenetic mechanisms. In work recognized as among the most important in 2011 by Autism Speaks and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, Dr. Schmidt and her colleagues were the first to identify a significant association between an easily modifiable factor, periconceptional prenatal vitamin intake, and reduced risk for autism spectrum disorders. In addition, they were among the first to report significant gene-by-environment interaction effects for autism, providing a potential explanation for the variation in findings across autism genetics studies. Future research will explore mechanisms behind observed interactions, including epigenetic effects, and will expand studies of interactions in the context of autism etiology, with the goal of identifying pathways for prevention and intervention.
David A. Schwartz, MD Dr. Schwartz received his bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of Rochester in 1975, his MD from the University of California-San Diego in 1979, and his MPH from Harvard School of Public Health in 1985.
Dr. Schwartz is a nationally recognized researcher and practicing physician who has specialized in environmental and occupational lung disease. He has published more than 170 peer-reviewed research papers, 50 book chapters, and a textbook. He has made fundamental discoveries about the biological and genetic factors that contribute to chronic pulmonary diseases, such as asthma and interstitial lung disease. He has served on numerous study sections, is a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation, and the Association of the American Physicians. In 2003, he received the American Thoracic Society Scientific Achievement Award.
Patrice Sutton, MPH
The Role of Health Professionals in Prevention
Patrice Sutton is a Research Scientist and is spearheading PRHE's clinical outreach and translation efforts. Patrice has over 20 years of experience in occupational and environmental health research, industrial hygiene, public health practice, policy development and community-based advocacy. As a contractor to California's state health department from 1987 to 2006, she was responsible for conducting all aspects of research investigations spanning a disparate range of issues, including lead poisoning, tuberculosis, asthma, and pesticide-illness. She has extensive experience collaborating with directly-impacted workplace and community-based populations, labor, and governmental and non-governmental organizations in the development of research strategies and policy recommendations. She also has extensive experience as a volunteer in support of communities and workers impacted by the nuclear weapons production cycle and has published over thirty peer-reviewed scientific articles and government technical reports.
Joseph Wiemels, Ph.D.
DNA Methylation Changes in Blood Cells that Impact Leukemia – Role of Environment
Dr. Joseph Wiemels is a professor of epidemiology at University of California, San Francisco. After completing his undergraduate degree in biology at Kenyon College, Ohio, he served in the Peace Corps teaching science subjects in the South Pacific. Dr. Wiemels received a Ph.D. in Environmental Health Sciences/Toxicology at the University of California, Berkeley, with minors in epidemiology and nucleic acid chemistry, in 1997. Dr. Wiemels joined a large pediatric leukemia epidemiology study as a postdoc in London, UK, before returning to California and taking up a position at UCSF in 2000.
Dr. Wiemels is committed to studying the epidemiology of childhood cancers with a focus on biology and natural history of the diseases. He has worked on tracing back the genetic and epigenetic origins of cancer, particularly childhood leukemia, and exploring the relationship of the host immune system and cancer in an epidemiologic fashion. His goal is to understand the biological mediators between genetic and environmental risk factors and disease, and how the immune system can detect and interact with cancers. Current projects include a genome wide association study of childhood leukemia and proposed GWAS in pediatric glioma, a large scale environmental risk factor and neonatal DNA methylation study, investigations into the role of autoantibodies in brain and other cancers, and the mechanisms behind allergies and Varicella virus-associations in brain cancers. Continued progress on all fronts will only be made through a combination of the best biology and epidemiology, and the shared worldwide resources and collaboration between investigators with disparate fields of interest.
Tracey Woodruff
Maternal and Fetal Exposures to BPA During Mid-Gestation
Dr. Woodruff is Associate Professor and the Director of the Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment at University of California - San Francisco (UCSF). Her research interests are to advance scientific inquiry, professional training, public education and health policies that reduce the impacts of environmental contaminants on reproductive and developmental health.
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