Extramural Research
Presenter Biosketches
Cumulative Risk Assessment Webinar Series
Thomas A. Burke
Associate Dean for Public Health Practice and Training and Professor
The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Thomas A. Burke is Associate Dean for Public Health Practice and Training and Professor in The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Department of Health Policy and Management, with joint appointments in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences and the School of Medicine Department of Oncology. He is also Director of the Johns Hopkins Risk Sciences and Public Policy Institute. Dr. Burke is Chair of the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Improving Risk Analysis and in 2006 he was named a Fellow of the Society for Risk Analysis. His research interests include environmental epidemiology and surveillance, evaluation of population exposures to environmental pollutants, assessment and communication of environmental risks, and application of epidemiology and health risk assessment to public policy. He was Principal Investigator for the Pew Environmental Health Commission which established the framework for a national approach to environmental public health tracking. He has been awarded the Johns Hopkins Golden Apple Award for excellence in teaching four times.
Before joining the University faculty, Dr. Burke was Deputy Commissioner of Health for the State of New Jersey and Director of Science and Research for the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. In New Jersey, he directed initiatives that influenced the development of national programs, such as Superfund, the Safe Drinking Water Act, and the Toxics Release Inventory.
Dr. Burke has served as a member of the National Academy of Sciences Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology and chaired the NAS Committee on Human Biomonitoring for Environmental Toxicants and Committee on Toxicants and Pathogens in Biosolids Applied to Land. He also served on the NAS Committee on the Toxicological Effects of Methylmercury. In 2003 he was named a lifetime National Associate of the National Academies. He was Inaugural Chair of the Advisory Committee to the Director of the CDC National Center for Environmental Health and a member of the Executive Committee of the EPA Board of Scientific Counselors.
Dr. Burke received his BS from St. Peter's College, his MPH from the University of Texas and his PhD in epidemiology from the University of Pennsylvania.
Wenyaw Chan
Professor
Division of Biostatistics
School of Public Health
University of Texas-Health Science Center at Houston
Wenyaw Chan, Ph.D. is currently a Professor of Biostatistics at the School of Public Health, University of Texas-Health Science Center at Houston, where he started his faculty appointment in 1989. Dr. Chan has participated in more than 30 public health research projects including several in environmental health. He has served as a dissertation supervisor for more than two-dozen doctoral students. His methodology research includes design and analysis of longitudinal studies and stochastic models. He has authored or coauthored more than 130 peer-reviewed articles and two textbooks in statistics, medical sciences, or public health. Dr. Chan is currently a member of ASPH/Pfizer Public Health Academy of Distinguished Teachers.
Ramya Chari
Associate Policy Researcher
RAND Corporation
Ramya Chari is an associate policy researcher at the RAND Corporation. She has expertise in environmental health risk assessment, environmental epidemiology, and the assessment of population exposure to environmental pollutants. Dr. Chari’s research includes the development of metrics for evaluating cumulative chemical exposures, community-level health assessments of environmental risks, and assessing and measuring emerging environmental threats to national health security. Prior to working at RAND, Dr. Chari received her MPH and PhD from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health in Baltimore, MD where her dissertation focused on characterizing and measuring disparities in the effects of lead exposure.
Dr. Douglas Crawford-Brown
Professor and Director
Cambridge Centre for Climate Change Mitigation Research
University of Cambridge
Dr. Crawford-Brown is Director of the Cambridge Centre for Climate Change Mitigation Research at the University of Cambridge, and Emeritus Professor in Environmental Sciences and Policy and Director Emeritus of the Institute for the Environment at the University of North Carolina in the US. He has served on the US National Drinking Water Advisory Committee, Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee, and National Pollution Prevention and Toxics Advisory Committee; on the US Legislative Commission on Global Climate Change; on the American Water Works Association's Technical Advisory Workgroup for Climate Change; on the European Commission's Panel of Scientific Experts on Risk; on the OFWAT (UK) Regulatory Futures Panel; and on the HM Treasury (UK) Interdependent Infrastructure Expert Panel. He has advised governments and businesses on risk, climate change, sustainability and environmental protection in the U.S., U.K., Germany, Czech Republic, Austria, Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, Abu Dhabi, Brazil, Mexico and France.
David Deganian
Visiting Assistant Professor of Law
Barry University School of Law
David Deganian is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Law at Barry University School of Law in Orlando, FL and directs the law school’s Environmental and Earth Law Clinic. David’s work is focused, in part, on the development of laws and policies for the protection of environmental justice communities, as well as the representation of these communities in environmental litigation. He is a graduate of the Georgia State University College of Law and the University of Georgia. The project is the cumulative risk methodology that he and his partner, Nick DiLuzio came up with. He started this "project" of coming up with a methodology while he was an attorney at Greenlaw.
Nick Diluzio
Project Manager/GIS Analyst
NewFields
Nick DiLuzio is a GIS analyst and project manager at NewFields in Atlanta, GA. Nick’s expertise in data management, geographical information systems (GIS), forestry, and environmental management has provided him the opportunity to contribute to diverse projects ranging from contaminant distribution to environmental justice issues. Prior to joining NewFields, Nick earned a B.S. in Biology at Davidson College, and Master’s degrees in both Environmental Management and Forestry from the Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University as well as earning a Certificate in Geospatial Analysis. He has used his expertise in performing pro bono work for nonprofit environmental organizations and the people they serve.
Dr. Jonathan Levy
Professor and Associate Chair
Department of Environmental Health
Boston University School of Public Health
Jonathan Levy is Professor of Environmental Health in the Department of Environmental Health at the Boston University School of Public Health. Dr. Levy's research focuses on air pollution exposure assessment and health risk assessment, with an emphasis on urban environments, multi-stressor exposure scenarios, and issues of heterogeneity and equity. Recent research projects have included evaluating spatial patterns of air pollution in complex urban terrain; developing methods to quantify the magnitude and distribution of health benefits associated with emission controls for motor vehicles, power plants, and aircraft; using systems science approaches to evaluate the influence of indoor environmental exposures on pediatric asthma in low-income housing, and developing methods for community-based cumulative risk assessment that includes chemical and non-chemical stressors. Dr. Levy has served on multiple national advisory committees, including the National Research Council (NRC) Committee on Improving Risk Analysis Methods used by the U.S. EPA, the NRC Committee on Science for EPA’s Future, and the Advisory Council on Clear Air Compliance Analysis. He was the recipient of the Walter A. Rosenblith New Investigator Award from the Health Effects Institute and the Chauncy Starr Distinguished Young Risk Analyst Award from the Society for Risk Analysis. He received his Sc.D. from the Harvard School of Public Health in Environmental Science and Risk Management, with a B.A. in Applied Mathematics from Harvard College.
Dr. Glenn Suter
Science Advisor
National Center for Environmental Assessment
Office of Research and Development
Glenn W. Suter II is Science Advisor in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s National Center for Environmental Assessment-Cincinnati and Chairman of the Risk Assessment Forum’s Ecological Oversight Committee. He has a Ph.D. in Ecology from the University of California, Davis, and 35 years of professional experience. He is the principal author of three texts in the field of ecological risk assessment, editor of three other books and author of more than two hundred other publications. He is Associate Editor for Ecological Risk of Human and Ecological Risk Assessment, and Assistant Editor for Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management. He has served on the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis Task Force on Risk and Policy Analysis, the Board of Directors of SETAC, an Expert Panel for the Council on Environmental Quality, the World Health Organization’s technical panel on Integrated Assessment, and the editorial boards of five journals. He is the recipient of numerous awards and honors; most notably, he is an Elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science; and he received SETAC’s Global Founder’s Award, their award for career achievement, the Association of Environmental Health and Science’s Lifetime Achievement Award, and the EPA’s Level 1 Scientific and Technical Achievement Award and Gold Medal for Exceptional Service. His research experience includes development and application of methods for ecological risk assessment and ecological epidemiology, development of soil microcosm and fish toxicity tests, and environmental monitoring. He is currently technical lead for the Bristol Bay Watershed Assessment.