Appendix C
Biographical Sketches of Committee Members
Eula Bingham, Chair, is a professor of environmental health at the University of Cincinnati. Dr. Bingham’s interests include risk assessment, regulatory toxicology, environmental carcinogenesis, and occupational health surveillance. She was a volunteer investigator at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and the assistant secretary of labor (Occupational Safety and Health Administration). She was the first recipient of the William Lloyd Award for occupational safety. Throughout her career, Dr. Bingham has served on numerous national and international advisory groups, including advisory committees of the National Research Council, Food and Drug Administration, Department of Labor, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, National Institutes of Health, Natural Resources Defense Council, and the International Agency for Research on Cancer. These committees addressed research needs in health risk assessment and the potential health effects of environmental exposure to chemicals. In 1989, Dr. Bingham was elected to the Institute of Medicine. She earned her M.S. in physiology and her Ph.D. in zoology from the University of Cincinnati.
Sanford Cohen is the founder and president of SC&A, Inc., an energy and environmental consulting firm providing expertise in radiation sciences, management, health and safety analyses, communications services, and information management. He has managed several contracts for agencies of the U.S. government, including the Environmental Protection Agency, the Centers for Disease Control, the Council on Environmental Quality, the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, the Department of Energy, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Dr. Cohen is involved in regulatory guidance pertaining to environmental management (including RCRA/CERCLA requirements), remediation of contaminated sites, safe disposal of hazardous wastes, site characterization in support of decontamination and decommissioning projects, recycling of scrap metal from nuclear facilities, electric and magnetic fields effects, and indoor air quality. Prior to founding SC&A in 1981, Dr. Cohen was the vice president and manager of Teknekron, Inc., Washington Operations, and president of Teknekron Research, Inc., a consulting group working with the above government agencies. Dr. Cohen earned his B.S. in science engineering at Northwestern University and his Ph.D. in nuclear engineering at the University of Michigan.
Milton Levenson is an independent consultant. Mr. Levenson is a chemical engineer with more than 50 years of experience in nuclear energy and related fields. His technical experience includes work in technologies related to nuclear safety, fuel cycle, water reactors, advanced reactors, and remote control. His professional experience includes research and operations positions at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the Argonne National Laboratory, the Electric Power Research Institute, and Bechtel. Mr. Levenson is a fellow and past president of the American Nuclear Society; a fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers; and recipient of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers’ Robert E.Wilson Award. He is the author of more than 150 publications and presentations and holds three U.S. patents. Mr. Levenson served as chairman or committee member in several National Research Council studies, including the most
recent study on WIPP. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1976. He received his B.Ch.E. from the University of Minnesota.
Kenneth Mossman is professor of health physics and director of the Office of Radiation Safety at Arizona State University (ASU) in Tempe, where he has also served as assistant vice president for research. Prior to his arrival at ASU, Dr. Mossman was a faculty member of the medical school and dental school at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., and was professor and founding chairman of the Department of Radiation Science in Georgetown’s Graduate School. His research interests include the biological effects of low-level radiation, radiation exposure in pregnancy, health effects of environmental radon, radiation protection, and public policy. Dr. Mossman has over 110 publications, including six books and proceedings related to radiation health issues. He has presented testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate. In 1984, Dr. Mossman was awarded the prestigious Elda Anderson Award from the Health Physics Society (HPS), in 1995 he received the HPS Marie Curie Gold Medal; and from 1996 to 1998 he served as a Sigma Xi distinguished lecturer. Dr. Mossman was elected a fellow of the HPS in 1994 in recognition of outstanding contributions to the field of health physics; he also served as president of HPS. Dr. Mossman earned a B.S. in biology from Wayne State University, M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Tennessee in radiation biology, and M.Ed, degree in higher education administration from the University of Maryland.
Ernest Nieschmidt is the director of the Laser Laboratory and adjunct associate professor of physics at Idaho State University, College of Engineering. His research interests span the development of a neutron activation analysis facility, sonoluminescence, and the destruction of hazardous organic components of mixed waste by free-radical chemistry. He is also involved in the development of the Laser Isotope Separation Laboratory to pursue research in separation of isotopes using selective excited states induced by laser. For most of his career, Mr. Nieschmidt worked for different contractors at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory on techniques to assay radioactive and transuranic waste material. These included passive and active neutron interrogation, analysis of active gamma rays and gamma rays produced by neutron inelastic scattering, neutron capture, chronoimaging, time correlations, and the application of position-sensitive detectors. He authored 106 publications related to topics in physical sciences. Mr. Nieschmidt earned his M.S. in physics at the San Diego State College.
John Plodinec is director of the Diagnostic Instrumentation and Analysis Laboratory at Mississippi State University. His laboratory specializes in developing instrumentation for unusual environments and in characterizing processes and technologies under real-world conditions. Dr. Plodinec is an internationally recognized expert in waste management and glass science. He has made important contributions in several areas of radioactive waste management, ranging from waste characterization to glass durability modeling. Prior to joining the Mississippi State University, he worked for 22 years at DOE’s Savannah River Site, where he collaborated in building and operating the first remote in-cell melter and served as primary technical lead for the product qualification program. In this capacity, he oversaw the remote-handled transuranic waste streams produced by the Savannah River Site. He has authored over 90 publications, primarily on waste vitrification and thermodynamics of waste management. He holds a patent on a device to sample high-level waste and on a slurry-feeding device for glass
melters. Dr. Plodinec earned his Ph.D. in physical chemistry from the University of Florida.
Anne E.Smith is a vice president of Charles River Associates (CRA), an economics consulting firm. Dr. Smith is an expert in risk management, cost-benefit analysis, economic modeling, and integrated assessment of complex environmental and energy issues. Issues that she has analyzed include contaminated sites, global climate change, air quality, and emissions trading. Dr. Smith has developed and reviewed decision support tools for risk-based ranking of contaminated sites and for making risk trade-offs in selecting remediation alternatives. She has submitted formal comments on the development of EPA Hazard Ranking System for identifying Superfund sites, has served on committees of the National Research Council on assessing contaminated site risk management activities, was a project leader in a review for the U.S. Congress of Superfund and RCRA concerns within the U.S. nuclear weapons facilities, and her testimony has been sought by committees of the U.S. Senate on air quality issues. Dr. Smith has a Ph.D. in economics from Stanford University, with a Ph.D. minor in engineering-economic systems. Prior to joining CRA, Dr. Smith was a vice president of Decision Focus Inc. She has also served as an economist in the Office of Policy Planning and Evaluation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
