Faculty - Environmental Health Science

Georgia Charkoftaki received her pharmacy degree from the University of Athens, Greece, where she also earned a MSC in drug delivery and a PhD in biopharmaceutics-pharmacokinetics. In August 2013 she moved to the University Colorado Denver to start a postdoc in clinical and translational science, focusing on kidney related diseases. Charkoftaki studied the pharmacokinetics of cyclophosphamide in patients undergoing dialysis and how Vitamin D affects drug metabolism in the kidneys, among other projects. At Yale she has focused on metabolomics working with Waters Xevo G2 QTof and molecular biology. Her main project is a study the importance of aldehyde dehydrogenases (ALDHs) on cancer and diabetes and the discovery of new potential drug targets.

Ying Chen has a broad background in environmental genetics and molecular toxicology, with specific training and expertise in redox biology, oxidative stress related disease and transgenic animal models of glutathione (GSH) deficiency. Her research in the past over ten years has focused on understanding the mechanistic roles of GSH redox homeostasis in human disease conditions related to environmental (including dietary) exposures. Other ongoing research projects in the Vasiliou lab include studies of: (i) the mechanistic roles of ALDH1B1 in alcohol-associated colon cancer, and (ii) the functional roles of ALDH1A1/3A1 in corneal pathophysiology.<_o3a_p>

Dr. Michelle Bell is the Mary E. Pinchot Professor of Environmental Health at the Yale University School of the Environment, with secondary appointments at the Yale School of Public Health, Environmental Health Sciences Division and the Yale School of Engineering and Applied Science, Environmental Engineering Program. Her research investigates how human health is affected by atmospheric systems, including air pollution and weather. Other research interests include the health impacts of climate change and environmental justice. Much of this work is based in epidemiology, biostatistics, and environmental engineering. The research is designed to be policy-relevant and contribute to well-informed decision-making to better protect human health and benefit society. She is the recipient of the Prince Albert II de Monaco / Institut Pasteur Award, the Rosenblith New Investigator Award, and the NIH Outstanding New Environmental Scientist (ONES) Award. Dr. Bell holds degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (B.S. in Environmental Engineering), Stanford University (M.S. in Environmental Engineering), University of Edinburgh (M.Sc. in Philosophy), and Johns Hopkins University (M.S.E. in Environmental Management and Economics and Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering). She was elected to the National Academy of Medicine.

Radiation oncologist Peter M. Glazer, MD, PhD, is the chair of the Department of Therapeutic Radiology. He has dedicated his career to helping cancer patients receive the highest quality of care available in a supportive environment.

“When patients are undergoing radiotherapy for cancer, it can be a sensitive and challenging time for them and their families,” he says. “Our team does everything possible to keep our patients safe and comfortable throughout treatment.” 

Dr. Glazer makes it his priority to provide patients seeking care at Smilow Cancer Hospital and its Care Centers with the most advanced technologies and evidence-based treatments. “We take great pride in giving our physicians the best tools to treat cancer,” he says.

As a professor of both therapeutic radiology and genetics at Yale School of Medicine, Dr. Glazer researches new therapeutic strategies for treating cancer and the role of altered DNA repair in tumor progression. His research was recently recognized by the National Cancer Institute of the NIH with a prestigious Outstanding Investigator Award of $7 million that will support his efforts to develop novel DNA repair inhibitors for cancer therapy.

Dr. Redlich, a graduate of Williams College and Yale University School of Medicine, is trained in internal medicine, pulmonary medicine, and occupational and environmental medicine. Her clinical practice and research interests focus on occupational and environmental lung diseases, in particular work-related asthma, and health effects and prevention of exposure to isocyanates, chemicals widely used to produce polyurethane foams and coatings and other products.

Dr. Russi is a professor of medicine at the Yale Medical School. He graduated summa cum laude from Dartmouth College in 1984, was a Fulbright Scholar, earned his medical degree from the University of California San Francisco, and his public health degree from Yale. He completed both internal medicine residency and occupational and environmental medicine fellowship at Yale, joining the faculty in 1993. He is interested in the occupational medicine of healthcare workers and is active nationally in both guidance development and educational programs to enhance the safety of medical centers. Dr. Russi teaches in several courses at Yale, attends on the internal medicine inpatient service, and directs Occupational Health Services at Yale New Haven Hospital.

Jodi Sherman is Associate Professor of Anesthesiology at Yale School of Medicine, Associate Professor of Epidemiology in Environmental Health Sciences at the Yale School of Public Health where she also serves as the founding director of the Program on Healthcare Environmental Sustainability of the Yale Center for Climate Change and Health. She also serves as the Medical Director of Sustainability for Yale New Haven Health.  Dr. Sherman is an internationally recognized researcher in the emerging field of sustainability in healthcare.  Her research interest is in life cycle assessment (LCA) of environmental emissions, human health impacts, and economic impacts of drugs, devices, clinical care pathways, and health systems. Her work seeks to establish sustainability metrics, paired with health outcomes and costs, to help guide clinical decision-making, professional behaviors, and public policy toward more ecologically sustainable practices to improve the quality, safety and value of clinical care. Dr. Sherman routinely collaborates with environmental engineers, epidemiologists, toxicologists, health economists, health administrators, health professionals, and sustainability professionals. 

Dr. Shannon Whirledge received her B.S. in Biology and B.A. in Political Science in 2003 from Winthrop University and was awarded her Ph.D. in Molecular and Cellular Biology in 2009 from Baylor College of Medicine. She continued her studies in reproductive endocrinology as an NIH IRTA fellow at the NIEHS. During her postdoctoral fellowship, Dr. Whirledge received her Masters in Health Science in Clinical Research from Duke University. In 2016, she joined the faculty of the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences at Yale School of Medicine.

Dr. Whirledge is an active member of the Endocrine Society, Women in Endocrinology, and the Society for Reproductive Investigation. Dr. Whirledge is an editorial board member for Endocrinology and serves as an ad hoc reviewer for other journals within the fields of Cell Biology and Reproductive Sciences.

Dr. Ginsberg is the director of the Center for Environmental Health for the New York State Dept of Health and has a Clinical Professor appointment at the Yale School of Public Health. He serves on a number of national committees including US EPA’s Science Advisory Board (2008-present) and the National Academy of Sciences (Biomonitoring committee 2004-2006; USEPA Risk Methods committee which produced Science and Decisions, 2006-2008; Inorganic Arsenic Risk Assessment committee, 2012-2015, Emerging Science committee 2016-present). He also served on USEPA’s Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee (2004-2009) and has been an external reviewer on a number of USEPA IRIS documents. Dr. Ginsberg has been called on by other federal agencies to provide reviews including OSHA (silica workplace standard), CPSC (cadmium in children’s jewelry) and FDA (dental amalgam). His risk assessments on fish contaminants, synthetic turf fields, acrylamide, cadmium, and assessments pertaining to risks in children and those with genetic polymorphisms have been published in peer review journals. Dr. Ginsberg co-authored a book for the lay public called “What’s Toxic What’s Not” (Berkeley Books, 2006).

Catherine Weikart Yeckel, MS, Ph.D. is an Assistant Clinical Professor. She received a master’s degree in exercise physiology from the University of Pittsburgh and a doctoral degree from University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB)-Galveston in preventive medicine and community health in the areas of human metabolism and nutrition. In collaboration with researchers at UTMB-Galveston, and more recently with researchers and clinicians specializing in pediatric and adult endocrinology at the Yale School of Medicine, she focused her research interests along the spectrum of insulin resistance and ß-cell dysfunction. These interests broadly include cardiometabolic health issues and protection as a consequence of obesity from young to old age, and physical activity/fitness from sedentary to physically fit. She has used physiological challenge models to unmask the impact of arsenic exposure on blood pressure (stress) hyperreactivity, and most recently, to help innovate imaging for brown adipose tissue metabolism in human. Dr. Yeckel created and directs an integrative course for YSPH, Physiology of Public Health. She also initiated and co-directed The Art of Public Health workshops involving MPH and MA student match-ups between YSPH and YSA. She serves as a reviewer/scientific advisor and consultant for diverse entities, including government agencies, museums and companies.

Suraj received his BA from Grinnell College (1999) and PhD in Chemistry from Duke University (2004). In June 2004 he joined the Los Alamos National Laboratory as a Director’s Postdoctoral Fellow focused on bio-threat reduction and environmental bioremediation research. In December 2006, he moved to the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) as Research Fellow and worked in the areas of cellular signaling and innate immune response. He has 20+ years of experience in the use of mass spectrometry to answer challenging questions in the areas of biotechnology focusing on human health, drug development, microbiology, and bioremediation. He joined Waters Corporation in October of 2015 and currently is the Biomedical Research Market Segment Manager for Waters Corporation. Immediately prior to joining Waters, Suraj worked at Research Triangle Institute International (RTI) as a Scientist and the LCMS Core Leader for the NIH's Eastern Metabolomics Resource Center at RTI.

Matthew Eckelman is an Associate Professor and Associate Chair for research of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Northeastern University, with affiliate appointments in Public Policy and the Social Science and Environmental Health Research Institute. He is also an adjunct Associate Professor at the Yale School of Public Health.  His research focuses on modeling emissions from industrial supply chains, including those of the health sector, and linking these emissions to human health damages and loss of ecosystem function.  Dr. Eckelman worked previously for the Massachusetts Executive Office of Environmental Affairs and in non-profit product engineering design and was a Peace Corps volunteer in Nepal.  He received a PhD from Yale Engineering.

Dr Edward has been a basic sciences researcher since 2000. He has been involved in clinical trials management since 2005. Dr Edward is registered as a professional natural scientist, which allows him to have a broad focus in the biological sciences. He has a good understanding of working with various donors and delivering various projects simultaneously. Dr Edward is passionate about building clinical research capacity in South Africa and strives to achieve efficiencies in all facets of research.

Dr Edward is responsible for the Clinical Research Division and Implementation Research Division at Aurum. These two divisions have more than 400 permanent staff, more than 60 active research grants and an annual operating budget exceeding $30 million. He is currently the Aurum Principal Investigator for the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) grant and the Sub-Saharan African Network for TB/HIV Research Excellence (SANTHE) grant. Dr Edward is also a co-investigator on a number of clinical trials at Aurum.

He is the Chief Operating Officer for the SA MRC-funded ACT for TB/HIV collaboration. This collaboration brings together a cross-disciplinary consortium of TB and HIV experts with complementary interests and skills to do transformative and translational TB and HIV research that will advance understanding, contribute to developing new tools and interventions to improve patient, programme and population relevant outcomes and build capacity of early stage investigators.

Dr Edward holds a Bachelor of Science degree with majors in Microbiology and Physiology as well as a Doctor of Technology Degree in Biotechnology. He has published in the areas of basic sciences and clinical research.

Dr. Friesen received a Ph.D. and M.Sc. in occupational and environmental health from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. She completed postdoctoral studies at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, and at the University of California at Berkeley. She is a Senior Investigator at the U.S. National Cancer Institute in the Occupational and Environmental Epidemiology Branch of the Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics. Dr. Friesen's research focuses on quantitative assessment strategies to characterize study participants' workplace exposures through their entire working life to minimize exposure misclassification in occupational epidemiologic studies. She has focused on improving exposure estimates, evaluating the robustness of exposure-response relationships to exposure assessment strategies, and using statistical models for both developing exposure metrics and evaluating their exposure-response relationships.

Dr. Hines is Adjunct Professor of Epidemiology in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences.  He earned his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in 1980. Following his postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Vermont College of Medicine, he became Assistant Professor and then Associate Professor at the Eppley Institute for Research in Cancer and Allied Diseases and the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. In 1989, Dr. Hines was recruited to the Wayne State University School of Medicine as Associate Professor of Pharmacology and Pediatrics Associate and in 1995, was promoted to Professor of Pharmacology. In 1999, he assumed a position as Professor of Pediatrics and Pharmacology and Toxicology at the Medical College of Wisconsin where he also served as Associate Director of the Children’s Research Institute of the Children’s Hospital and Health Systems and Co-Section Chief of Clinical Pharmacology, Pharmacogenetics, and Teratology in the Department of Pediatrics. In addition, Dr. Hines was Adjunct Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and served as Co-Director for a collaborative NIEHS Environmental Health Sciences Center between the two institutions.  In 2012, Dr. Hines accepted the position of Associate Director for Health at the National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory (NHEERL) in the Office of Research and Development of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. In this position, he managed the three NHEERL health divisions and their diverse research portfolio, as well as the Research Core Unit.  He retired from the US Environmental Protection Agency in 2020.

Throughout his academic career, Dr. Hines’ research was supported by various organizations, including state health departments, private foundations, industry contracts and the National Institutes of Health. He is a member of the Society of Toxicology where he was elected to the Presidential Chain, serving as President from May 1, 2019 through April 30, 2021.  He has served on numerous Federal and State science advisory panels and as an Associate Editor or Editorial Board Member for nine peer-reviewed journals.  He currently is a member of the Drug Metabolism and Disposition and Current Topics in Toxicology Editorial Boards. During his career, Dr. Hines approached research questions using a transdisciplinary strategy, assembling and leading research teams with expertise spanning from molecular biology and analytical chemistry to clinical cohort studies.  Dr. Hines has over 150 publications focused on mechanisms whereby exposures to environmental toxicants or drugs alter gene regulation and the genetic/epigenetic basis for interindividual differences in response to exposures.  Over the last 13 years of his academic career, his research turned to elucidating how and through what mechanisms the enzymes involved in toxicant and drug disposition change during early life stages and the interaction of genetic/epigenetic variation with this normal developmental process. The impact of this body of work has resulted in an h-index of 47 and numerous invitations to present his research at both national and international meetings.

Dr Salmaan Inayat-Hussain is the Head, Product Stewardship and Toxicology Section, Group Health, Safety and Environment at Petroliam Nasional Berhad  (PETRONAS) and was  a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at Yale School of Public Health. He has previously held senior positions including Professor of Toxicology & Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences, The National University of Malaysia and Director, Melaka Biotechnology Corporation. Salmaan obtained a PhD in Biochemical Toxicology from the University of Leicester, England in 1997. Salmaan is an American Board Certified Toxicologist, European Registered Toxicologist and Fellow of the Academy of Sciences, Malaysia. He has more than 26 years of research and teaching experience  at various organizations including University of Colorado, Karolinska Institutet, University of Osaka, King’s College London and Kyoto University. He is the Associate Editor for Food and Chemical Toxicology journal and editorial board member for several journals including Human and Experimental Toxicology, Journal of Toxicological Sciences, Toxicology Methods and Mechanisms and Genes and Environment.  Furthermore, Salmaan serves on a number  of international committees including as an expert on Joint FAO/WHO Meeting on Pesticide Residues, Chairman of the IPIECA Globally Harmonised System for Classification and Labeling Task Force and Director, International Union of Toxicology (IUTOX) Executive Committee. He is an Advisor to the Department of Occupational Safety and Health, Malaysia. Salmaan has participated in working groups organized by international organizations such as WHO, UNEP and APEC Chemical Dialogue.  

Dr. David A. Jett is Director of the NIH Countermeasures Against Chemical Threats (CounterACT) Program, a program supported by a specific Congressional appropriation to the NIH for the development of new drugs and diagnostic tools for treating victims of chemical exposures during an emergency. He also serves as Program Director and Scientific Team Leader within the Division of Translational Research at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS). After receiving a Ph.D. in Neuropharmacology and Toxicology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, Dr. Jett conducted post-doctoral research and subsequently joined the faculty at Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public Health where he conducted research as a university professor for several years. Dr. Jett's scientific interest is in the impact of chemical agents on nervous system function, including the molecular and cellular mechanisms of cognitive and neural development. Specifically he has expertise and experience with pesticides and nerve agents. Dr. Jett is has authored many scientific articles and book chapters in the area of neurotoxicology and has chaired sessions and given keynote addresses at many national and international scientific meetings. He holds the position of Professor Adjunct of Chronic Disease and Epidemiology within the Yale School of Public Health. Dr. Jett has served on White House and intergovernmental committees that set the nation's research priorities, as well as science advisory panels for the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Defense. Dr. Jett's other major interest at NIH is training and programs designed to increase diversity in the neuroscience research workforce.

Dr. Rena Jones’ research focuses on the application of GIS and novel methodological approaches to assess environmental exposures, especially air and water pollutants, and epidemiologic studies to investigate the health impacts of these exposures. Her interdisciplinary research has explored spatial variability in exposure-disease relationships and examined the consequences of spatial error and other sources of exposure misclassification on epidemiologic inference. She currently works on characterizing long-term exposure to numerous environmental factors and identifying and clarifying how these exposures may cause cancer.

Dr. Jones received her M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in epidemiology from the University at Albany (State University of New York) School of Public Health. She completed her postdoctoral training in the Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics at the National Cancer Institute.

Dr. Kleinstreuer’s research focuses on mathematical and computational modeling of biological systems and their susceptibility to perturbations that result in adverse health outcomes. Her expertise is in computational systems biology, bioinformatics, mathematical modeling, predictive toxicology, alternative models, and biomedical engineering. Kleinstreuer received B.S. degrees in mathematics and biomedical engineering from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH), a Ph.D. in bioengineering from the University of Canterbury, and completed her postdoctoral training at the U.S. EPA National Center for Computational Toxicology. Prior to joining the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), Kleinstreuer worked for Integrated Laboratory Systems, Inc., as director of the ILS computational toxicology group. She began her role as Deputy Director of the NTP Interagency Center for the Evaluation of Alternative Toxicological Methods (NICEATM) in early 2016, leading domestic and international efforts to develop novel testing and analysis strategies that provide more rapid, mechanistic, and human-relevant predictions of potential environmental chemical hazards. In addition to her YSPH adjunct position, Kleinstreuer has a secondary appointment in the NIEHS Division of Intramural Research Biostatistics and Computational Biology Branch, and an additional adjunct faculty position in the Eshelman School of Pharmacy at UNC-CH. She is the recipient of numerous prestigious awards including the 2008 B.H. Neumann Prize from the Australian Mathematical Society, the 2012 Impact Award from the U.S. EPA’s Office of Research and Development, the 2016 F. Clarke Fraser New Investigator Award from the Teratology Society and 2016 Young Researcher Americas Lush Prize, and the 2019 Society of Toxicology Achievement Award. 

Dr. Qing Lan a world leader in environmental and occupational exposures, human health studies and gene environment interaction. Her research focuses on molecular epidemiologic studies of populations exposed to several classes of chemical compounds that are known or suspected occupational and environmental carcinogens. She is one of YSPH’s main collaborators at NCI studying environmental exposures, genetic susceptibility for NHL and multiple myeloma, indoor air pollution and gene polymorphisms for lung cancer risk in Xuanwei, China. She has mentored several YSPH PhD candidates.

Dr. Lan received her M.D. at Weifang Medical University and her Ph.D. in molecular epidemiology at the Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine in Beijing, as part of a joint training program with the United States Environmental Protection Agency and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and received her MPH at Johns Hopkins University.

Leon Robertson is a sociologist/epidemiologist. He has conducted research on medical care delivery, the epidemiology of injuries and the effects of various injury prevention and control efforts. The feedback of vehicle use on increased greenhouse gas emissions, resultant warming and increased vehicle use is the subject of his latest  research. 

Dr. Rothman received an A.B. in biochemistry and molecular biology at Harvard College and an M.D. at Northwestern University. At The Johns Hopkins University, he received training in internal medicine, occupational and environmental medicine, and epidemiology. Dr. Rothman joined the NCI in 1990. His research focuses on using biologic markers of exposure, early biologic effect, and genetic susceptibility in epidemiologic studies of occupational and environmental causes of cancer. Dr. Rothman received the PHS Achievement Medal for research on cancer biomarkers and the Commendation Medal for studies of benzene. He is the author of more than 450 publications.

Xiaoming Shi is the Professor and Director of the National Institute of Environmental Health (NIEH), Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China CDC). Professor Shi received his MD in 1999 from Anhui Medical University and PhD in Epidemiology and Health Statistics in 2005 from the China CDC. He joined the branch of Infectious Disease Surveillance, China CDC in 2005, and then worked as the head of the Branch of Monitoring and Evaluation, Division of non-communicable Disease (NCDs) Control and Community Health, China CDC. In 2015, he was appointed as the Director of NIEH, China CDC.

Dr. Shi has received a number of grants from the Ministry of Science and Technology of China, National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), as well as international agencies and organizations (e.g., United Nations Population Fund) to conduct research on healthy longevity and environmental health, and more. He has also contributed to the establishment the National Human Bio-monitoring (NHBM) of China to assess for the first time the internal exposure levels of environmental chemicals in the Chinese population. Dr. Shi is currently leading a large-scale project systematically assessing the acute health risks of air pollution in China. He and his research group conducted a cohort study on sub-clinical outcomes of polluted air in China (SCOPA-China Cohort) and a well-designed panel study on biomarkers of air pollutants exposure among Chinese aged 60-69 (China BAPE). He has published over 200 peer-reviewed journal articles and authored/co-authored in over 10 book chapters and books.

Dr. Veselkov’s research group focuses on developing computational/AI methods that can make a difference in data-driven global health and disease. He has led the development of a series of field-changing data analytics frameworks to augment emerging molecular ("-omics") profiling technologies into clinical decision support, and population health management. His group expertise combines the use of a diverse range of computational techniques from signal processing, imaging informatics, network-based machine learning, natural language processing and high-performance mobile computing for information extraction from heterogeneous biomedical datasets. In collaboration with Vodafone Foundation, Kirill is currently leading DreamLab-DRUGS/HyperFoods and CORONA-AI projects - one of the biggest citizen science projects with over 250K engaged users. The projects harness the idle processing power of tens of thousands of smartphones, network-based AI and large -omics data to hunt for drug-food combinations against cancer genomes and emerging COVID-19 disease. His translation interests are precision medicine/nutrition, AI-driven drug repositioning, and digital pathology. 

Kirill has received a World Economic Forum (WEF) Young Scientist Award, and served on the WEF Global Agenda Council on the Future of Computing. His research was featured by technology programs BBC Click, Sky News/Swipe, and multiple media outlets.

Elisabete Weiderpass, MD, MSc, PhD, is a Brazilian cancer researcher who is a naturalized Swedish and Finnish citizen. She is an expert in cancer epidemiology and cancer prevention. Since January 2019 she serves as Director of the International Agency for Research on Cancer.  IARC is the specialized cancer agency of the World Health Organization (WHO), based in Lyon, France, and home more than 350 staff dedicated to cancer research. The Agency’s membership and governance is made up of 26 countries (or ‘participating States’). 

Earlier on, Dr Elisabete Weiderpass served as leader of the Department of Research at the Cancer Registry of Norway, and of the Genetic Epidemiology Group at the Folkhälsan Research Center in Finland. She was a Professor of Medical Epidemiology at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden, and a Professor of Cancer Epidemiology at the Arctic University of Norway. She held Adjunct Professorship positions in Cancer Epidemiology in Brazil, China, and the Islamic Republic of Iran, and is a Visiting Professor at the Dasman Diabetes Institute in Kuwait. She has authored over 730 scientific publications in in peer reviewed international journals.  She is an editor of the World Cancer Report, to be launched in 2019.

Jason C. White is the Director of the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, the oldest Agricultural Experiment Station in the country. In addition to managing the agency budget of $13 million and approximately 105 scientific staff, he has a research program of $5.1 million in competitive funding/research focused on food safety, defense, and security.  Dr. White is the Managing Editor for the International Journal of Phytoremediation, an Associate Editor for NanoImpact, on the editorial board of Environmental Pollution, and on the Editorial Advisory Boards of Environmental Science & Technology and Environmental Science & Technology Letters. I am the Immediate Past President of the International Phytotechnology Society. Dr. White is also an elected member of the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering, a member of the European Science Foundation (ESF) College of Experts, and a 2020 Clarivate Web of Science Highly Cited Researcher. Dr. White’s primary research program focuses food safety and security, with specific interests on the use of nanotechnology to decrease crop disease and increase the efficiency of agrichemical delivery, as well as on the broader impacts of nanomaterials on agricultural plants.  Dr. White received his Ph.D. in Environmental Toxicology from Cornell University in 1997 and has additional appointments at the Harvard University TH Chan School of Public Health, the University of Massachusetts Stockbridge School of Agriculture, and Post University. I am also a Commissioned Official of the United States Food and Drug Administration (US FDA).  

Andrea L. Boissevain, MPH has served as the Director of Health for Town of Stratford since 2010.  She has more than 25 years of multi-agency experience in addressing public health issues, evaluating human health risks and communicating the associated complexities to a wide variety of audiences. Prior to joining the local health department, Ms. Boissevain served as the department’s technical advisor for nearly 13 years on myriad issues pertaining to the federal Raymark Superfund clean-up project. She provided crisis management planning and execution in the early phases of project, reviewed technical documents and drafted comments on behalf of the health department. She also instituted communication and outreach strategies to residents regarding the project’s progress and its impact on public health.

 An advocate of involving the residents in addressing and solving communication issues, Ms. Boissevain orchestrated a series of neighborhood forums over several years to address neighborhood-specific concerns as the cleanup progressed. Known to take decades to clean up, the Raymark Superfund site is still active with the latest phase of remediation work where Ms. Boissevain is working with colleagues from federal and state health and environmental agencies with the fourth “generation” of stakeholder groups.

Leading a nationally accredited local health department (only the third to be accredited in CT), Ms. Boissevain is responsible for leading the development and implementation of mission, vision and strategic objectives of ensuring that the 10 Essential Services of Public Health are carried out. Local public health ranges from enforcing local and state regulations, preparing for and responding to public health emergencies, addressing health disparities, investigating foodborne illness outbreaks and linking residents to needed care or resources--all of that and more are part of part and parcel of Ms. Boissevain's work in Stratford.

 In other community engagement work, Ms. Boissevain is also an active member of Primary Care Action Group, a coalition consisting of two local hospitals, two federally qualified health centers and six area local health departments dedicated to championing health improvement in Greater Bridgeport area.  She also serves as co-chair of the steering committee of Get Healthy CT, one of the Community Health Improvement Plan (CHIP) work groups that focuses on eliminating obesity, a health priority for Stratford as well as the region. 

Dr. Laura Bozzi is Director of Programs for the Yale Center on Climate Change and Health (YCCCH), where she leads the Center's policy and public health practice work in Connecticut, co-teaches the Clinic in Climate Justice, Climate Policy, Law, and Public Health, and is leading development of the new YCCCH Policy Impact Unit. 

Previously, Dr. Bozzi led the Rhode Island Department of Health Climate Change Program. In that role, she worked to promote policy change, increase public awareness, and support community resilience building strategies that collectively help both mitigate climate change’s negative health impacts and promote health equity. Laura was appointed as a member to the State of Rhode Island's Executive Climate Change Coordinating Council (EC4) Advisory Board and the Agricultural Lands Preservation Commission, and she also served as Co-Director of the New Leaders Council Rhode Island. Over her career, she has worked across the United States -- from Oregon and West Virginia to Washington, DC and Rhode Island – in environmental protection, food systems, and fisheries. Laura holds a Ph.D. in Forestry and Environmental Studies from Yale University.  

Priscilla (Penny) F. Canny, ’83 Ph.D., has extensive experience as a nonprofit leader with a particular passion for research and data analysis. She is President of the Board of Data Haven, an online comprehensive source for data about the Greater New Haven area. She has served as Senior Vice President for Grantmaking and Strategy at The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven, leading the Foundation’s efforts to build community knowledge and information. Prior to The Community Foundation, she was managing director and director of research at Connecticut Voices for Children, a research-based policy and advocacy organization. Before joining Connecticut Voices for Children, Dr. Canny was assistant dean for the Yale School of Public Health where she also earned a Ph.D. in Chronic Disease Epidemiology and worked for many years as a senior research associate. She maintains an appointment at Yale's School of Public Health. 

Dr. Kathryn Conlon is an assistant professor of Epidemiology with a joint appointment in the School of Medicine (Division of Public Health Sciences) and School of Veterinary Medicine (Department of Veterinary Medicine & Epidemiology) at the University of California, Davis. Her research aims to advance our understanding of the myriad ways climate change impacts human health, including characterizing exposure among the most at-risk populations, as well as identifying and evaluating interventions taken to protect health from climate-related exposures. Prior to joining the University of California, Davis, Dr. Conlon was an epidemiologist with the Climate and Health Program at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention where she worked closely with state and local public health practitioners to design climate change epidemiological studies. 

Dr. Conlon's experiences with state and local health practitioners has been her motivation to design, characterize, conduct, and implement research and programs in support of building an evidence base for climate change and health interventions.

Cheryl Fields is a Lecturer in Epidemiology & Public Health at Yale University, where she teaches graduate courses in toxicology and risk assessment. She received her BA in biology from New York University and earned her MPH in Environmental Health Sciences at Mailman School of Public Health of Columbia University.

Before joining Jonathan Borak and Company in 2003, she worked as a Research Coordinator in the Department of Community and Preventive Medicine at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, where her research focused on the growth and neurological development of children following pre- and post-natal exposures to lead, pesticides, and PCBs. Prior to that, she worked on the research staff at the Columbia University Center for Children’s Environmental Health where she contributed to studies of the adverse impacts of chemical exposures and emotional trauma in pregnant women (resulting from the 9/11 World Trade Center collapse) on the growth and neurological development on their fetuses. She has also worked as a research assistant in the Molecular and Cell Biology laboratory at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, where she studied murine embryogenic muscle development.

As a Research Scientist at Jonathan Borak and Company, Ms. Fields’ work combines expertise in toxicology and epidemiology. She provides consultative and research services on issues involving environmental and occupational toxicology and their effects on public health. Her recent work includes a critical review of the toxicologic, epidemiologic and medical literature on the respiratory effects of methyl methacrylate monomer; summaries of epidemiological data on the risks of cancer and congenital defects related to industrial solvent exposures (e.g., benzene, vinyl chloride, perchloroethylene, MTBE) and lifestyle factors (e.g., obesity, diabetes, smoking); and a state-of-the-art literature review on the neurological and renal effects of occupational exposures to elemental mercury. Other projects have included an evidence-based critique of screening tests for beryllium sensitization, and systematic reviews of the toxicity of beauty product components to assess potential for long-term health effects, and the toxicological properties of flame retardant chemicals.

Rolando oversees the Yale Medical Library Bioinformatics Support Program and is Lecturer in Epidemiology for the Environmental Health Sciences (EHS) Department, Yale School of Public Health. This end-user-centered bioinformatics program provides resources, training, consultations, and collaboration to biomedical sciences researchers at Yale including finding, retrieving, analyzing and sharing molecular datasets. 

Dr. Hagstrom is the inaugural participant in the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering (CASE) Science and Technology Policy Fellowship Program. In April 2019, she began a two-year fellowship placement in the Remediation Division of the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP). As a member of the agency’s core team on PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances), Hagstrom provides technical and policy-related guidance on PFAS to colleagues throughout the state government. She received a B.A. in chemistry from Amherst College and a Ph.D. in chemical and environmental engineering from Yale University, where her research focused on the application of photochemical upconversion processes to enhance the light absorption of photovoltaics and photocatalysts for pollutant degradation. Prior to joining DEEP as a CASE Fellow, Hagstrom worked as a Christine Mirzayan Science and Technology Policy Fellow in the Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

Dr. Iris Herz-Kaminski has a long time interest in water. She received her B.Sc in Earth Sciences, M.Sc in Atmospheric Science and PhD in Environmental Science from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel. She also holds a MPPM (Master in Public Policy and Management) from the University of Pittsburgh. For her graduate studies she used an atmospheric numeric-model to evaluate evaporation rates and climate trends in Northern Israel. For her PhD she experimented with water and wastewater filtration. Her postdoctoral work included water research and heavy metal analysis for environmental research. She has been the director of the water commission research fund for the government of Israel.

Emma Hines is currently a Health & Air Quality Associate with the Rocky Mountain Institute’s Carbon-Free Buildings Program, where her work is focused on the climate, health, and air quality co-benefits of building electrification. She has served as a member of the teaching faculty and instructional team for the Climate Change and Health Online Certificate Program with the Yale School of Public Health for two years.

She previously participated in a two-year fellowship with the Climate and Health Program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia. In this position, she conducted climate change and health research, created guidance documents and communications materials, and provided technical assistance to state and local public health departments.

Hines received her master’s degree in Geography from the University of Colorado Boulder, where she also served as a research assistant with the Natural Hazards Center. Hines completed her master’s thesis examining the experiences of hospitals with Hurricane Harvey in Harris County, Texas. Her Bachelors degrees are in Geography and Environmental Science from the University of Texas at Austin.

Her current research interests include climate adaptation and resilience, climate mitigation co-benefits, public health, and hazard/disaster preparedness.

Jill Kelly is a classroom instructor for GIS. Her research focuses on the development and application of GIS and other spatial methods to study environmental phenomena. Jill is a geospatial generalist with interests in morphology, areal aggregation, and raster analysis. Her dissertation research explored the spatial aggregation of lidar measurements in predicting spatially explicit estimates of forest biomass.

Kate is the point of contact for all things library for affiliates of the School of Public Health, including researchers, faculty, students, and staff. She can create a tailored instruction session for your students, your team, or your lab; help you develop a comprehensive search strategy for systematic reviews of the biomedical and social sciences literature; or help you make sense of funder and journal mandates on research data management, open access, and data sharing. Kate also teaches and supports public health data discovery, geographic information systems, and citation management. Contact Kate with suggestions for new purchases or licenses of journals, books, databases, and software -- and to set up library orientations for new YSPH affiliates (and new-to-the-library YSPH affiliates). Email Kate at kate.nyhan@yale.edu or set up a consultation at a time that's convenient for you.

Michael Pascucilla was appointed as the Chief Executive Officer/Director of Health for the East Shore District Health Department (ESDHD) in 2010, which serves the Towns of Branford, East Haven and North Branford, Connecticut.  Prior to ESDHD, he served as the Assistant Director of Health for the City of Hartford, Department of Health & Human Services, and past positions include the University of Connecticut, Department of Environmental Health & Safety, Yale University, Department of Epidemiology & Public Health and several local public health districts.

Michael holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Public Health/Nutrition from Southern Connecticut State University and a Master's Degree in Public Health from the University of Connecticut, Community Medicine & Health Care. Mr. Pascucilla is a Nationally Certified Environmental Health Specialist/Registered Sanitarian and has over 29 years’ experience as a public health official in local, state and federal government. He is very active in the public health field and is a Site Visitor for the Public Health Accreditation Board (PHAB), currently seats as a Board of Director/Past President for the Connecticut Associations of Directors of Health (CADH) and is a Board of Director for the Connecticut Public Health Association. Mr. Pascucilla is also the past President of the Connecticut Environmental Health Association (CEHA) and served within the leadership of this organization for over seven years, where he continues to be an active member. 

Michael holds several National and Connecticut State public health certifications and over the course of his career, he has been very engaged as a public health official in governmental and academic settings. His experience includes hands-on participated in several national/federal grant-funded initiatives, including a practicum at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Yale University. His experience also includes health prevention education and promotion among diverse community populations, staff supervision, administrative/budget/grant management, population health policy, workforce development, code enforcement, volunteer/ committee, food/water safety, indoor air quality and communicable disease prevention/education.

Michael also is an Part-time Professor at Southern Connecticut State University in the Department of Public Health located in New Haven, Connecticut. He has combined his passion for this professional field of public health and higher education, as local health departments strive to hire and find well-qualified, public health college educated employees. He is actively mentoring/working to improve public health training/hands-on courses to assist college students in their career preparation.  To that end, his organization also regularly promotes the public health field at public events/venues, public schools and colleges, and host high school and college students with internships to attract young adults into the next generation of the public health workforce.

Michaels focused areas of public health research are climate change and food allergies. In 2016, he was the recipient of the National Environmental Health Association's Professional Sabbatical Award, where he conducted research in the United Kingdom on food allergies. Michael also researched, designed and secured grant funding to build the world's first solar electric pump-out vessel which serves the east shores of Connecticut's Long Island Sound.  

With respect to his experience outside his positions as a public health official and an educator, he is committed to this professional field by improving the quality of his local environment and is very engaged his hometown community. Michael resides in the Town of Guilford, Connecticut with his wife and two sons, and their family enjoys boating, fishing/shellfishing, swimming and the many other recreational activities that Long Island Sound offers.

Shaelyn Patzer is a PhD candidate at George Mason University, specializing in science, climate, and strategic communication. She has nearly a decade of experience working as a science communication practitioner in both academic and governmental organizations, including Mason's Center for Climate Change Communication (4C), the U.S. Department of Energy, and the National Park Service. Her research interests include climate journalism, practical application of social science theory in climate communications, and the influence of personal experience on behaviors and attitudes concerning climate change. Prior to pursuing her doctorate, she received a master’s degree in science writing from John Hopkins University.

Shannon Pociu is an Environmental Analyst 3 at the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) where she has worked in the Remediation Division within the Bureau of Water Protection and Land Reuse for 20 years. She is the Remediation Division’s lead on PFAS and emerging contaminants and was appointed the Agency’s lead on PFAS in 2019. An active participant in the Governor’s Interagency PFAS Task Force, Shannon provides technical advice on PFAS to colleagues within the Remediation Division and throughout DEEP.  In addition, she has considerable experience managing the investigation and cleanup of State and Federal Superfund sites, potable water projects, and other remediation sites. Prior to joining DEEP, Shannon worked in environmental consulting for 4 years.  Shannon holds a BS in Renewable Natural Resources and a BA in Geography from the University of Connecticut and a Master’s of Science Degree in Environmental Science from the University of New Haven.

Connie Roser-Renouf is an Associate Research Professor at the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University. Her research focuses on understanding how diverse publics interpret and respond to information on the issue of climate change. The objective of this research is the identification of effective communication strategies to inform and engage audiences. 

Connie earned her PhD in Communication Research at Stanford University in 1986. Prior to joining the Center at George Mason, she taught and conducted research at the University of California at Santa Barbara; the University of Denver; the University of Pittsburgh; and Humboldt State University.

Mr. Slade's work focuses on the development of analytical models to evaluate the effects of physical, social and environmental factors on the patterns of disease and injury within the workplace setting, including non-traditional settings such as the military and merchant mariners. In recent years, he has been the lead statistician for four clinical trials conducted by the Department of Defense to determine the effect of pharmacological agents on prevention of hearing loss as well as mild traumatic brain injuries.

Dr. Brian Leaderer is the Susan Dwight Bliss Professor of Epidemiology in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at the Yale School of Public Health and he is Professor at the Yale School Forestry and Environmental Studies. He is the Co-Director of the Yale Center of Perinatal, Pediatric & Environmental Epidemiology (the Yale CPPEE, or the "Center"). In his role as the Deputy Dean at the Yale School of Public Health for over 14 years (during which he was also Interim Dean for 2 years), he oversaw Faculty Affairs including the Appointments and Promotion Committee and Faculty Mentoring Program. He has served on several Committees and Review Panels (NRC, EPA, HEI, etc.). 

Dr. Leaderer's research interests, resulting in over 300 publications, are interdisciplinary in nature with a focus on assessing exposures (measured and modeled in both environmental chamber and field studies) to air contaminants (indoor and outdoor) and assessing the health impact resulting from those exposures in epidemiological studies. Over the past 30 years he has been Principal Investigator on numerous research grants (totaling approximately $40 million). Several of these grants have been large epidemiologic-based grants (R01s) centered on the role of environmental and genetic factors on the respiratory health of children with particular attention to their role in the development of asthma and asthma severity.  He has collaborated with colleagues from several disciplines at the Yale CPPEE for over 30 years on several epidemiologic studies examining the impact of pollutants on perinatal and pediatric outcomes. With funding from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), he investigated the relationship between exposures to indoor levels of nitrogen dioxide, traffic contaminants and the exacerbation of asthma in 1,401 children (in the STAR Study).  The findings of from this study resulted in another ongoing NIH-funded (NIEHS) grant to conduct a double-blind, randomized control, triple cross-over design intervention trial in urban homes of asthmatic children to examine the efficacy of reducing exposure to indoor levels of PM_2.5 and NO₂ on reducing asthma severity.

Lawrence Marks, PhD, studies how humansensory systems transduce and process patterns of stimulus energy, and how the resulting information is encoded and represented in perception and cognition. Current work focuses on developing sensory-cognitive models of multisensory (gustatory and olfactory) perception of flavors and, more generally, on theoretical implications of multisensory processing for perception and cognition.

Stolwijk was an associate fellow and then a fellow of the John B. Pierce Laboratory from 1957 to 1974 and associate director from 1974 to 1989. His research was in occupational health and indoor air pollution. He was the Susan Dwight Bliss Professor Emeritus of Epidemiology and Public Health. He served as Chair of Public Health from 1982-1989.

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It is with sadness that we wish to share the news that Jan A.J. Stolwijk, PhD, passed away on February 17, 2021. He was a superb scientist and a seminal figure at the School of Public Health. Professor Stolwijk’s leadership and many contributions played key roles in the school’s development and growth. The messages below were prepared by his family and by his close colleagues, Michael B. Bracken, PhD, Susan Dwight Bliss Professor Emeritus, Brian P. Leaderer, PhD, MPH, Susan Dwight Bliss Professor Emeritus, and Lawrence E. Marks, PhD, Professor Emeritus.

Professor Jan A.J. Stolwijk

Jan A.J. Stolwijk, PhD, was born on a farm that grew seed wheat on a polder in the Netherlands on September 29, 1927, the eldest son of Leonard and Cornelia (Van der Bijl) Stolwijk. He attended the Amsterdam Montessori school, probably taught by Maria Montessori herself. A physiologist and biophysicist, he received his BS, MS, and PhD in plant science from Wageningen University in 1955. He came to the United States in 1955 and was naturalized in 1962. On leave of absence from the Laboratory of Plant Physiological Research, Wageningen, the Netherlands, he accepted a post-doctoral position as a Maria Moors Cabot Research Fellow at the Biological Laboratories at Harvard, under the mentorship of Dr. Kenneth V. Thimann.

From Harvard, he was recruited to the John B. Pierce Laboratory in New Haven in 1957, where he studied human physiology, and rose to serve as Associate Director from 1974 to 1989. He moved next door to Yale, first as Director of Graduate Studies, and then as Chair of the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health from 1982-1989, and again as Acting Chair from 1994-1995. He retired as the Susan Dwight Bliss Professor Emeritus of Epidemiology and Public Health. He was a member of the Cosmos Club of Washington, D.C.; Sigma Xi—the scientific research honor society, and others.

Dr. Stolwijk combined deep insight, technical skill and creativity, in a wide range of environmental health areas. He wrote the first digital computer program to model heat flow in the human body for the NASA space program in 1966, in what became known as “The Stolwijk Model.” He pioneered research on “sick building syndrome,” indoor air pollution, non-ionizing radiation, and other environmental health topics. He even engaged quantification challenges in the social sciences, namely the social policy arena of risk perception. He continued his international connections, engaging such noted public health scientists as Sir Richard Doll. He was fluent in Dutch, German, French and English. Dr. Stolwijk’s keen assessment of character, quietly ironic sense of humor, mentorship and uncanny ability to lead with inspiration and effectiveness in a crisis, will all be missed.

At home on the morning of February 17, 2021, surrounded by those who loved him, Dr. Stolwijk passed away peacefully at the age of 93 from congestive heart failure. Survivors include his wife of 30 years, Dr. Deborah Rose, BA ’72, MPH ’77, PhD ’89, daughter Sarah L.L. Rose, BA ’17, sister Agnes Stolwijk Korsuize, brother-in-law Hans Korsuize, and many nieces and nephews. A memorial service was held at Temple Isaiah in Fulton, Maryland with global virtual participation on February 23, and a private interment took place in New York on February 25.

The Association Montessori Internationale (AMI) was founded by Dr. Maria Montessori in 1929, with headquarters in Amsterdam. The Washington Montessori Institute (WMI) is the oldest training center in the United States. Donations in Dr. Stolwijk’s memory can be made to the non-profit WMI by visiting the website at: www.wmi-montessori.org.

At YSPH, we are proud to host the Jan A.J. Stolwijk Fellowship for our students: https://publichealth.yale.edu/admissions_alumni/ape/stolwijk/.

Tributes to Jan Stolwijk Jan chaired the EPH Department (1982-89) during a period of expansion when the student body increased substantially, and many new faculty recruits were added. This was a time when Schools of Public Health across the country were growing rapidly. The increasing realization within EPH that the Department could not fulfill its mission without having increased independence within the University and moving EPH to a more independent School status led to an existential crisis in the Department's history. Jan managed this with grace and skill; EPH survived, eventually achieved School status, and has gone from strength to strength in subsequent years.

Jan was known to his friends and colleagues as the gentle giant—striding from his office in the Pierce Foundation to the SPH building, a tall man with a slight scholar’s stoop and with a friendly greeting to all. He was known for giving as good as he got on the (now lost) tennis court in front of EPH. Michael Bracken, MPH ’70, PhD ’74

Jan’s professional life has been well summarized, so let me add a personal note. I came to the Yale PhD program at Jan’s encouragement. He was my mentor throughout my PhD and well into my career. Jan was an internationally recognized leader in Indoor Air Quality. He introduced me to the world leaders in the field and made it a point of including me in meetings, policy discussions and assessing research needs. We spent many nights on the phone talking about research ideas as well as personal issues. He was always up for a good discussion.

Jan’s influence on and friendship to my family goes back a long way. He was instrumental in bringing my father-in-law not only to the Pierce Laboratory, but also to Guilford. While the academic community has lost a leader, I have lost a friend. Brian Leaderer, MPH ’71, PhD ’75

Much of Jan’s research in the 1960s focused on human responses to heat and cold and on implications for the regulation of body temperature. Combining his skills in biophysics with adeptness in computer programming, Jan used measurements of environmental events, thermal properties of the skin, blood flow, and metabolic processes, together with Newtonian models of heat flow, to develop and test an important quantitative model of the human body’s responses to thermal stresses, subsequently known as the “Stolwijk Model.” In the 1970s and 1980s, Jan, with his many students and colleagues at Yale, expanded his pioneering research into health effects of indoor air pollution, non-ionizing radiation, hazardous waste. He even investigated the perception of risk of indoor air pollutants and nuclear reactors. After serving as Director of Graduate Studies, Jan later served as Chair of Epidemiology and Public Health at Yale from 1982-1989, as Acting Chair from 1993-1994, and, in retirement, he was the Susan Dwight Bliss Professor Emeritus of Epidemiology and Public Health. The Jan A.J. Stolwijk Fellowship, endowed to honor his life and work, has for more than two decades provided awards annually to MPH students in the School of Public Health to support summer projects or internships related to environmental health sciences. Lawrence E. Marks, PhD