Biographical Information on the Committee on Ecological Risk Assessment under FIFRA and ESA
Judith E. McDowell (Chair) is a senior scientist and former Biology Department chair at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Her research interests include physiological ecology of marine animals, developmental and energetic strategies of marine animals, physiological effects of pollutants on marine animals, and invertebrate nutrition. She has served on several National Research Council committees, including the Committee on Oil in the Sea: Phase I—Update of Inputs and the Committee on Research and Peer Review in EPA. Dr. McDowell earned a PhD in zoology from the University of New Hampshire.
H. Resit Akcakaya is a professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at Stony Brook University. His research focuses on methods and approaches for assessing the vulnerability of species to extinction, evaluating the effects of landscape dynamics on species persistence, projecting human land use on the basis of human population trends, and predicting the vulnerability of species to global climate change. He worked as a senior scientist at Applied Biomathematics, where he was one of the principal architects of the RAMAS library of software and developed models for risk assessment and modeling of metapopulations, for integrating metapopulation dynamics with geographic information systems, and for incorporating uncertainty into International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) criteria for threatened species. Dr. Akcakaya has also been involved in practical and theoretical research on problems of species conservation, including several population-viability analysis studies. He has over 100 publications in conservation biology and theoretical ecology, including four books, and is a coauthor of two widely used textbooks (Risk Assessment in Conservation Biology and Applied Population Ecology). In addition, Dr. Akcakaya serves on the editorial boards of Conservation Biology and Population Ecology and is chair of the IUCN Red List Standards and Petitions Subcommittee. Dr.
Akcakaya earned a PhD in ecology and evolution from the State University of New York at Stony Brook.
Mary Jane Angelo is professor of law and director of the Environmental and Land Use Law Program at the University of Florida’s Levin College of Law. Her research focuses on environmental law, water law, agricultural law, pesticide law, endangered species law, biotechnology law, and the integration of law and science. Before joining the faculty, Ms. Angelo served as an attorney in the US Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of General Counsel and as senior assistant general counsel for the St. Johns River Water Management District. In addition, she has served on the National Research Council Committee on Independent Scientific Review of Everglades Restoration Progress. Ms. Angelo earned an MS in entomology and JD from the University of Florida.
Patrick Durkin is cofounder and principal scientist of Syracuse Environmental Research Associates, a small business engaged in chemical and biological risk assessment and documentation. He has been responsible for developing safety evaluations for chemical and biological agents on the basis of a synthesis of toxicological data, environmental persistence, and exposure estimates. Dr. Durkin has conducted numerous risk assessments and risk assessment method development tasks for the US Department of Agriculture, the US Environmental Protection Agency, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. Dr. Durkin earned a PhD in environmental and forest zoology from SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry.
Erica Fleishman is a researcher in the John Muir Institute of the Environment at the University of California, Davis. Her research focuses on integration of conservation science with management and policy, especially in the intermountain western United States and California. Her work focuses on predictive modeling of occupancy and faunal responses to changes in climate, land cover, land use, and connectivity. Dr. Fleishman is a coauthor of curricula in applications of remote sensing to environmental sciences and ecological modeling. She has convened multidisciplinary teams to analyze and synthesize concepts and data on diverse topics and has facilitated or advised on the science process for multiple habitat conservation plans and natural community conservation plans in California. Dr. Fleishman is past editor in chief of Conservation Biology and serves on the editorial boards of Global Ecology, Biogeography, and Ecography. Dr. Fleishman earned a PhD in ecology, evolution, and conservation biology from the University of Nevada, Reno.
Anne Fairbrother is a principal scientist for Exponent’s ecosciences practice. She has more than 30 years of experience in ecotoxicology, wildlife toxicology, contaminated-site assessment, and regulatory science for existing and emerging chemicals in the United States and Europe. Dr. Fairbrother has participated in or
led the development of guidance documents for ecological risk assessments, such as the US Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Framework for Metals Risk Assessment, the British Columbia Ministry of Environment’s guidance for implementing Tier 1 ecological risk assessments of contaminated sites, and EPA’s ecological soil screening levels. Recently, she served on a science advisory panel for the state of Utah and as a consultant to the British Columbia Ministry of Environment to set site-specific water-quality standards for selenium that protect fish and wildlife. Dr. Fairbrother has served as president of the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, the American Association of Wildlife Veterinarians, and the Wildlife Disease Association. In addition, she has been a member of the National Research Council’s Committee on Animals as Monitors of Environmental Hazards. Dr. Fairbrother earned a DVM from the University of California, Davis and a PhD in veterinary science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Daniel Goodman was a professor of ecology at Montana State University. His research interests included environmental statistics, risk analysis, population dynamics, and environmental modeling. Dr. Goodman was a member of the Silvery Minnow PVA Working Group (Middle Rio Grande Endangered Species Collaborative), the Fish Passage Center Oversight Board of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, the Hawaiian Monk Seal Recovery Team, and the Cook Inlet Beluga Whale Recovery Team. Dr. Goodman earned a PhD in zoology from Ohio State University.
William L. Graf is University Foundation Distinguished Professor Emeritus of the Department of Geography of the University of South Carolina and Regents Professor Emeritus in Geography at Arizona State University. His research interests include fluvial geomorphology and hydrology and policy for public land and water with an emphasis on river channel and habitat change, human effects on rivers, contaminant transport and storage in rivers, and the downstream effects of large dams. He has served as a science-policy adviser on more than 40 committees for federal, state, and local agencies and organizations. In addition, Dr. Graf has chaired and been a member of many National Research Council committees, including those focused on the Klamath River, the Platte River, the Everglades, the Missouri River, and watershed management. He is chair of the NRC Geographical Sciences Committee, a national associate of the National Academy of Sciences, and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Dr. Graf earned his PhD in physical geography from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a certificate in water-resources management.
Philip M. Gschwend is a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research interests are environmental organic chemistry, phase exchanges and transformation processes, modeling fates of organic pollutants, roles of colloids and black carbons, and passive
sampling for site evaluation. The overall objective of his research is to develop means of predicting the fate of organic chemicals in natural and engineered environments. His research includes the study of such processes as sorption, airwater exchange, and biodegradation. In addition, Dr. Gschwend conducts field observations in water and sediments of groundwater, lakes, estuaries, and the ocean to validate the predictions. Dr. Gschwend earned a PhD in geochemistry from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
Bruce K. Hope is a principal environmental scientist with CH2M HILL. His expertise includes preparation and review of human, ecological, and probabilistic risk assessments; exposure modeling; development of air-toxics benchmarks; identification and management of persistent and bioaccumulative chemicals; and evaluation and communication of health and environmental risks associated with chemical releases. Dr. Hope has served on a number of US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Science Advisory Board committees, including that on Ecological Risk Assessment—An Evaluation of the State-of-the-Practice and EPA’s Regulatory Environmental Modeling Guidance Advisory Panel. In addition, he was a member of the National Research Council Committee on Improving Risk Analysis Approaches Used by the U.S. EPA. Dr. Hope earned a PhD in biology from the University of Southern California.
Gerald A. LeBlanc is the head of and a professor in the Department of Environmental and Molecular Toxicology of North Carolina State University. His research interests include environmental signaling, sex determination and differentiation, and toxicity assessment of chemical mixtures. Dr. LeBlanc has been a member of the Executive Committee of the Research Triangle Environmental Health Collaborative, of the FIFRA National Science Advisory Panel on the potential for atrazine to affect amphibian gonadal development, and of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences Expert Panel on Hazards of Bisphenol A to Humans and the Environment. Dr. LeBlanc earned a PhD in biology from the University of South Florida.
Thomas P. Quinn is a professor in the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences of the University of Washington. His research interests focus on the behavior, ecology, evolution, and conservation of salmon, trout, and related fishes. Dr. Quinn’s research blends a variety of approaches, including tagging, telemetry, direct observations, and laboratory experiments. He is studying the patterns of spawning-site selection and reproductive behavior of salmon, movements and migration patterns, evolutionary adaptations of salmon to their environments, and predator-prey ecology. He has served on the National Research Council Committee on Protection and Management of Pacific Northwest Anadromous Salmonids. Dr. Quinn earned a PhD in fisheries from the University of Washington.
Nu-May Ruby Reed recently retired as a staff toxicologist with the California Environmental Protection Agency (Cal/EPA) Department of Pesticide Regulation, where she was the lead scientist on risk-assessment issues. Her research interests were evaluating health risks posed by and developing risk-assessment guidelines on pesticides. She has been on several Cal/EPA working groups that initiate, research, and revise risk-assessment guidelines and policies, and she represented her department in task forces on community concerns and emergency response, risk-management guidance, and public education. Dr. Reed has been a member of several National Research Council Committees, including the Committee on Risk Analysis and Reviews, and is a current member of the Committee on Acute Exposure Guideline Levels. Dr. Reed earned a PhD in plant physiology from the University of California, Davis.
