Appendix A
Biosketches of Committee Members
Mark J. Utell, M.D. (Chair), is a professor of medicine and environmental medicine and the Director of Occupational and Environmental Medicine at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, and former director of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center. His research interests have centered on the effects of environmental toxicants on the human respiratory tract. Dr. Utell has published extensively on the health effects of inhaled gases, particles, and fibers in the workplace and other indoor and outdoor environments. He is the co-principal investigator of an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Particulate Matter Center. He has served as chair of the Health Effects Institute’s Research Committee, chair of EPA’s Environmental Health Committee and on the executive committee of the EPA Science Advisory Board. He is a former recipient of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) Academic Award in Environmental and Occupational Medicine. Dr. Utell is currently a member of the National Research Council’s (NRC’s) Committee to Develop a Research Strategy for Environmental, Health, and Safety Aspects of Engineered Nanomaterials. He previously served as chair of the NRC Committee to Review the NIOSH Respiratory Disease Research Program and the Committee to Review the Department of Defense Enhanced Particulate Matter Surveillance Program Report; as a member of the NRC Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology; as a member of the NRC Committee on Research Priorities for Airborne Particulate Matter; and as a member of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) Committee to Review the Health Consequences of Service During the Persian Gulf War. He received his M.D. from Tufts University School of Medicine.
John R. Balmes, M.D., is a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, and the chief of the Division of Occupational and Environmental Medicine at San Francisco General Hospital. He is also a professor of environmental health sciences at the University of California, Berkeley, and the director of the Northern California Center for Occupational and Environmental Health. Dr. Balmes studies the respiratory health effects of various air pollutants, with a particular interest in occupational respiratory disease. He has investigated the acute effects of inhalation exposures to ambient air pollutants, the chronic effects of such exposures in epidemiological studies, and genetic determinants of responses to air pollutants. Dr. Balmes has led research to assist in the development of a national program to link environmental hazards with health outcome data to improve the tracking of diseases potentially related to environmental exposures. He is also the physician member of the California Air Resources Board. He served on the NRC’s Committee for the Review of the Army’s Enhanced Particulate Matter Surveillance Project Report, and on the IOM Committee on the Long-Term Health Consequences of Exposure to Burn Pits in Iraq and Afghanistan. Dr. Balmes received his M.D. from the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine.
Stanley C. Haimes, M.D., M.P.H., CIH, FACOEM, has spent 20 years in the occupational medicine field and his career encompasses the governmental, academic, private, and public sectors of occupational health programs. Dr. Haimes has experience with workers compensation programs, medical surveillance programs, and occupational medicine clinics. He is the medical director of the Center for Occupational and Environmental Health, the associate medical director for Seminole County Emergency Medical Services, and a medical review physician for Medical Audit Resource Services, Inc., all near Orlando, Florida. He has served as the director of Medical and Health Services for Lockheed Martin; as an environmental physician at the Veterans Administration Medical Center of Bay Pines, Florida; and Assistant Professor at the University of South Florida College of Medicine. Dr. Haimes has served on committees and panels for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Library of Medicine, the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH), and the American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA). He is a board certified physician in occupational medicine and is a certified industrial hygienist (CIH). He is a fellow of the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. He received his M.D. from the University of South Florida and his M.P.H. from the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health.
William E. Halperin, M.D., Dr.P.H., is the chair of the Department of Preventive Medicine, New Jersey Medical School, and the interim associate dean for the Newark Campus of the School of Public Health, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. His experience in epidemiology ranges from field
investigations of disease outbreaks (such as anthrax), to more subtle investigations of the association of chemical exposures with a variety of outcomes (such as dioxin and soft tissue sarcoma), as well as occupational injuries. Dr. Halperin has served on numerous NRC committees, including as Chair of the Committee on Toxicology and as a member of the Committee on Combined Exposures to Hydrogen Cyanide and Carbon Monoxide in Army Operations, and he is a member of the Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology. He is board certified by both the American Board of Preventive Medicine and the American Board of Occupational Medicine. Dr. Halperin received his Dr.P.H. and his M.D. from Harvard University.
Philip Harber, M.D., M.P.H., is a professor of public health in the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health, University of Arizona, and professor emeritus at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles. Dr. Harber’s research focuses in occupational respiratory diseases, occupational health services assessment, and computer applications in occupational health. He is board certified in occupational (preventive) medicine, pulmonary diseases, and internal medicine. Dr. Harber served on the IOM Committee on Gulf War and Health: Updated Literature Review of Depleted Uranium. He received his M.P.H. from the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health and his M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.
Francine Laden, Sc.D., is the Mark and Catherine Winkler Associate Professor of Environmental Epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health. She is also an associate professor in the Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Dr. Laden’s research focuses on environmental risk factors of cardiovascular disease and cancer, specifically breast cancer, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL), and lung cancer. She studies the relationship of exposure to organochlorine chemicals with both breast cancer and NHL and the association of diesel exhaust and other sources of fine particulate matter with lung cancer mortality. She has served on two IOM committees on the Gulf War and Health and on the NRC Committee on Contaminated Drinking Water at Camp Lejeune. Dr. Laden received her Sc.D. from the Harvard School of Public Health.
Ephraim Massawe, Sc.D., is an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science and Industrial Technology at Southeastern Louisiana University. His research focuses on environmental and occupational health, nanoinformatics for health and safety of nanomaterials, and assessment and management of alternative substitutes to toxic chemicals. Dr. Massawe directs the EPA-funded Indoor Air Quality Assessment Project and the Modeling Exposures and Health Risks of Nanomaterials. He has experience in global environmental health issues and has
worked for the United Nations in Australia, Holland, Kenya, Tanzania, and the United States. Dr. Massawe is a member of AIHA, ACGIH, and the American Public Health Association, among many other related professional organizations. He earned his Sc.D. in environmental health and industrial hygiene from the University of Massachusetts.
Julia B. Quint, Ph.D., is a retired research scientist and section chief of the Hazard Evaluation System and Information Service in the Occupational Health Branch of the California Department of Public Health. She was involved in indentifying and evaluating reproductive toxicants, carcinogens, and other workplace chemical hazards, and in developing research protocols and other strategies to protect workers, communities, and the environment from the hazards of toxic chemicals. Dr. Quint is a member of the California Environmental Contaminant Biomonitoring Program Scientific Guidance Panel, the California Environmental Protection Agency’s Green Ribbon Science Panel, and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health World Trade Center Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee. She was a member of the NRC Committee on Tetrachloroethylene and the Committee on Health Impact Assessment. Dr. Quint received her Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Southern California.
David Richardson, Ph.D., M.S.P.H., is an associate professor of epidemiology in the School of Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His research focuses on the health effects of exposure to ionizing radiation. Dr. Richardson has conducted studies of cancer among nuclear workers at several U.S. Department of Energy facilities, as well as studied cancer among the Japanese survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He has served as a visiting scientist at the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer in Lyon, France, and at the Radiation Effects Research Foundation in Hiroshima, Japan. Dr. Richardson is an associate editor of the journals Occupational and Environmental Medicine and Environmental Health Perspectives and a member of the President’s Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health. He received his Ph.D. and his M.S.P.H., both in epidemiology, from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Howard E. Rockette, Ph.D., M.A., is professor emeritus of biostatistics at the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health. His primary research focuses on the development and application of statistical methods for problems in the areas of clinical trials, and in occupational and environmental epidemiology, and on the evaluation of radiological imaging systems. Research in occupational and environmental health has included estimation of cancer risk for various occupational groups including coal miners, steelworkers, and aluminum reduction plant workers. Dr. Rockette completed his Ph.D. and his M.A. degrees at the
Pennsylvania State University. He remains active on review committees, student committees, and NIH grants.
Mara Seeley, Ph.D., DABT, is a senior toxicologist at Gradient with experience in the areas of human health risk assessment, exposure assessment, and regulatory comment. She performs critical reviews of animal toxicology and human epidemiology studies, conducts multi-pathway human health risk assessments, develops toxicity criteria and health-based exposure levels, and evaluates exposures for non-standard exposure scenarios. Before joining Gradient, Dr. Seeley worked as an NIEHS research fellow at the University of Washington, where she studied the health effects of air pollution. She has authored or co-authored peer-reviewed articles and book chapters on a variety of topics, including risk assessment, health effects of perchlorate and nitrogen dioxide, endocrine disruptors, and developmental toxicity. Dr. Seeley has served on the IOM Committee to Review ATSDR’s Great Lakes Reports. She received her Ph.D. in environmental health and toxicology from the University of Washington and is a diplomat of the American Board of Toxicology.
Rosemary K. Sokas, M.D., M.Sc., M.O.H., is a professor and the chair of Human Science at the Georgetown University School of Nursing and Health Studies. Her research interests include applied intervention effectiveness studies targeting occupational safety and health needs of vulnerable working populations. Dr. Sokas previously served on the faculties of the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health, the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, and George Washington University. She also directed the Occupational Safety Health Administration’s Office of Occupational Medicine and served as associate director for science at NIOSH. Dr. Sokas has served on the National Academies’ Committee on the Review of NIOSH Research Programs, the Committee on Persian Gulf Syndrome Comprehensive Clinical Evaluation Program, and the Committee to Review the Worker and Public Health Activities Program administered by the Department of Energy and the Department of Health and Human Services. She has an M.D. from the Boston University School of Medicine and an M.Sc. and an M.O.H. from the Harvard School of Public Health (occupational physiology and occupational health, respectively).
