Appendix
Biographical Information on the Committee to Review the Health and Safety Risks of High-Biocontainment Laboratories at Fort Detrick
CHARLES N. HAAS (Chair) is the L.D. Betz Chair Professor of Environmental Engineering and Head of the Department of Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering at Drexel University. His broad research interests are in drinking water treatment, bioterrorism, and risk assessment. Specific research activities include assessment of risks from exposures to deliberately released agents; engineering analysis and optimization of chemical decontamination schemes; microbiological risks associated with pathogens in drinking water, biosolids, and foods; novel kinetic models for disinfection processes and process control; and use of computational fluid dynamics for process modeling. Dr. Haas is co-director of the Center for Advancing Microbial Risk Assessment that is jointly funded by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. He received his M.S. from the Illinois Institute of Technology and his Ph.D. in environmental engineering from the University of Illinois. He is currently a member of the National Research Council’s (NRC’s) Water Science and Technology Board.
NANCY D. CONNELL is professor of infectious disease in the Department of Medicine at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ), New Jersey Medical School. Her major research focus is the interaction between Mycobacterium tuberculosis and the macrophage. She directs the UMDNJ Center for Biodefense, which does research into detection and diagnosis of biowarfare agents and in development of biodefense preparedness training programs. She chairs the Recombinant DNA Subcommittee of the Institutional Biosafety Committee, and directs the Biosafety Level 3 Facility of UMDNJ’s Center for the Study of Emerging and Re-emerging Pathogens. Dr. Connell was a member
of the NRC Committee on Testing and Evaluation of Biological Standoff Detection Systems and the Institute of Medicine (IOM) Committee on Advances in Technology and the Prevention of their Application to Next Generation Biowarfare Agents. She received her Ph.D. in microbiology from Harvard University.
DONALD A. HENDERSON is a resident scholar at the Center for Biosecurity at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. He was the first Director of the Office of Public Health Emergency Preparedness, and continues to serve as the senior science advisor to the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. Dr. Henderson is a Johns Hopkins University distinguished service professor and dean emeritus of the Bloomberg School of Public Health, with appointments in the Departments of Epidemiology and International Health. He is also professor of medicine and public health at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. Dr. Henderson directed the World Health Organization’s global smallpox eradication campaign, and was instrumental in initiating the organization’s global program of immunization. He received his M.D. from the University of Rochester School of Medicine and his M.P.H. from the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences and the IOM in 1978.
MARK T. HERNANDEZ is a professor in the Department of Civil, Environmental, and Architectural Engineering at the University of Colorado at Boulder. His research interests lie at the cusp of molecular biology and civil engineering, including biological air pollution, sustainable industrial green chemistry, and biogenic acid production. Recent work has focused on tracking bioaerosols in the quarantined Katrina flood zone and in observing seasonal variation in biogenic aerosols in the urban Northeast and Mountain West United States. He attained his professional engineering registration after receiving all of his degrees and serving a post-doctoral tenure at the University of California’s Engineering College on the Berkeley campus. Dr. Hernandez currently serves as an editor of the Journal of Aerosol Science and Technology, and is the director of the Colorado Diversity Initiative.
BARBARA JOHNSON has over 15 years of experience in the U.S. Government in the area of biosafety, biocontainment, and biosecurity, and is president of the consulting company Barbara Johnson & Associates, LLC. She has managed the design, construction, and commissioning of a BSL-3 Aerosol Pathogen Test Facility, and launched the U.S. Government’s first chemical and biological counterterrorism training facility. Research areas include biological risk assessment and mitigation, testing the efficiency of respiratory protective devices, and testing novel decontamination methods against biological threat agents. In the private sector she pioneered the development of the first joint biosafety and biosecurity programs between the United States and institutes in the former Soviet Union. She has served as president of the American Biological Safety Association, and is co-editor of the journal Applied Biosafety. Dr. Johnson currently
serves on the NRC committee providing continuing assistance to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) on preparation of additional risk assessments for the Boston University National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratory. She received a Ph.D. in microbiology and is a registered biosafety professional.
HENRY M. MATHEWS is a consultant in biosafety and biocontainment. He also holds an appointment as an adjunct associate professor in the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University, and is a course instructor in the Emory University Science and Safety Program, an internationally recognized, behavior-based biosafety training program for BSL-3 and BSL-4 laboratories. For 30 years, Dr. Mathews worked at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), where he held several senior positions, including Chief of the Safety Operations Section of the Office of Health and Safety. He was also an adviser to the Associate Director for Laboratory Science on Facility, Safety and Security issues. He participated as a technical expert in the design of the Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratory, including BSL-2, BLS-3, and BSL-4 laboratories. He also authored operations manuals for laboratories and vivarium facilities. Dr. Mathews also represented CDC in review of laboratories at Dugway Proving Ground (BSL-3), the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research (BSL-4), the Canadian National Microbiology Laboratory, the Swedish Institute for Infectious Disease Control, NIH, and Georgia State University. He received his M.S. and Ph.D. in biology from Emory University.
TIMOTHY C. RELUGA is assistant professor of mathematics at Pennsylvania State University. His research interests concern the description, understanding, and prediction of the dynamics of biological systems. Population biology is his core research interest, but his work encompasses topics in evolutionary biology, immunology, epidemiology, and computer science. His most recent work has focused on incorporating social and behavioral factors into theories of infectious disease dynamics and management. Dr. Reluga received his Ph.D. in applied mathematics from the University of Washington.
JONATHAN Y. RICHMOND is CEO of Jonathan Richmond and Associates, a biosafety consulting firm with a global clientele. Prior to starting his own firm, Dr. Richmond was the director of CDC’s Office of Health and Safety in Atlanta, Georgia. He is an international authority on biosafety and laboratory containment design. Dr. Richmond was trained as a geneticist, worked for 10 years as a research virologist, and has been involved in the field of biosafety for the past 32 years. He has authored many scientific publications in microbiology, chaired many national symposia, edited numerous books, and is an international consultant to ministries of health on laboratory safety and training. He served as president of the American Biological Safety Association. Dr. Richmond received his M.S. in genetics from the University of Connecticut and his Ph.D. in genetics from Hahnemann University.
LEONARD M. SIEGEL is director of the Center for Public Environmental Oversight (CPEO), a project of the Pacific Studies Center that facilitates public participation in the oversight of military environmental programs, federal facilities cleanup, and brownfield revitalization. He is one of the environmental movement’s leading experts on military facility contamination, community oversight of cleanup, and the vapor intrusion pathway. For his organization he runs two Internet newsgroups: the Military Environmental Forum and the Brownfields Internet Forum. He is a member of the Interstate Technology and Regulatory Council’s Permeable Reactive Barrier Work Team, the Department of Toxic Substances Control (California) External Advisory Group, and the Moffett Field (formerly Moffett Naval Air Station) Restoration Advisory Board. He has also served on several NRC committees, most recently as a member of the Committee on Review of Secondary Waste Disposal and Regulatory Requirements for the Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternatives Program. Mr. Siegel studied physics at Stanford University.