Appendix A
Committee and Consultant Biographies
COMMITTEE MEMBERS
David J. Tollerud, M.D., M.P.H. (Chair), is professor and chair of the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences at the University of Louisville School of Public Health and Information Sciences. He received his M.D. from Mayo Medical School in 1978 and his M.P.H. from the Harvard School of Public Health in 1990. Dr. Tollerud has extensive clinical training, with specialty board certifications in internal medicine, pulmonary and critical care medicine, and environmental and occupational medicine, with a longstanding interest in the health of disadvantaged and underserved populations. Dr. Tollerud’s research interests include the effects of environmental pollution on asthma and other health problems, particularly among children and inner-city disadvantaged populations; the influence of cigarette smoke on human health, particularly the immune system; obesity and diabetes research, both the immunological aspects and environmental influences; and hematopoietic stem-cell transplants. An additional area of research interest is strategies to prevent work-related injury and illness. Dr. Tollerud has published more than 90 scientific articles, books, and book chapters; is a member of numerous professional and scientific organizations; and sits on a number of local, national, and international committees dealing with environmental, occupational, and public health issues. In addition to chairing the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Committee on Shipboard Hazard and Defense II (SHAD II), he served as chair of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) Committee on Air Force Health Study (Ranch Hand) Data and Biospecimens Available for Research. He previously chaired the IOM Committee on the Long-Term Health Consequences of Exposure to Burn Pits in Iraq and Afghanistan; and he has served in various capacities on almost a dozen IOM and National Research Council (NRC) committees, studies, and boards.
Joseph A. Boscarino, Ph.D., M.P.H., is a senior epidemiologist and behavioral scientist at the Geisinger Center for Health Research. Over the past 35 years, he has directed hundreds of studies related to HIV disease, chronic hepatitis, cardiovascular disease, cancer, rheumatoid
arthritis, patient satisfaction, addictions, and other topics conducted in the contract research, organizational, and academic settings. His current funded research at Geisinger Clinic includes assessing the outcomes for chronic hepatitis B and C infections, the onset and course of primary biliary cirrhosis, and the use of naloxone in prevention of opioid overdose mortality. Dr. Boscarino is presently the site principal investigator (PI) for the Chronic Hepatitis Cohort Study (CHeCS), funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Foundation, and was the site PI for the Stevens–Johnson Syndrome Study (funded by the Food and Drug Administration) and a colorectal cancer study (funded by the National Cancer Institute). Currently, he is also evaluating the impact of Hurricane Sandy and a collaborative mental health intervention for Meridian Health in New Jersey, funded by the New Jersey Department of Health. Dr. Boscarino has been funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to study the health impact of the World Trade Center Disaster in New York City and to develop the next generation of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) prediction tools for use in clinical practice (i.e., New York PTSD Risk Score). Before joining Geisinger, he was a senior scientist with the New York Academy of Medicine in New York City and a senior director with Merck-Medco in Franklin Lakes, New Jersey. Dr. Boscarino currently holds adjunct appointments at Mount Sinai School of Medicine (Associate Professor, Medicine and Pediatrics) and at Temple University School of Medicine (Professor, Psychiatry). In 2009, he was elected to Fellow Status by the American Psychological Association (APA) and in 2010 received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (ISTSS) for his research. Dr. Boscarino is currently a member of the APA, ISTSS, the Society of Biological Psychiatry, and the American College of Epidemiology. Dr. Boscarino is a Vietnam combat veteran; he served in the U.S. Army from August 1964 to December 1966, including 13 months as a combat artilleryman assigned to the II Corps Theater of Operations.
Linda A. McCauley, R.N., Ph.D., is professor and dean of the Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing at Emory University. A nurse epidemiologist who conducts occupational and environmental health research, her work focuses primarily on chemical exposures and effects on health, including neurobehavioral function and biomarkers of DNA damage. She has conducted large epidemiological investigations of health effects associated with deployment in the 1991 Gulf War and has published numerous papers on exposure assessment and symptoms of veterans of that conflict, including those of troops exposed to chemical warfare agents detonated at the Khamisyah site. Dr. McCauley also led a large research program on organophosphate pesticide exposures in workers and their children in the agricultural communities in the northwest United States. She currently continues her research program on pesticide exposures in agricultural and urban populations. A major focus of her research includes partnering with communities and broad stakeholder involvement in both research participation and dissemination of research findings. Dr. McCauley is particularly known for her community-based participatory research methods with vulnerable populations at risk for environmental exposures. Among the other IOM/NRC committees she served on are the Committee for Review of the Health Effects in Vietnam Veterans of Exposure to Herbicides (Eighth) Biennial Update; the Post-Vietnam Dioxin Exposure in Agent Orange–Contaminated C-123 Aircraft, and the Roundtable on Environmental Health Sciences, Research, and Medicine. She was elected to membership in the National Academy of Medicine in 2008 (at the time called the IOM) and currently serves on the Academies Board on Population Health and Public Health Practice.
Thomas E. McKone, Ph.D., is a senior staff scientist and deputy division director at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and a professor of environmental health sciences at University of California, Berkeley, School of Public Health. Dr. McKone is a fellow of the Society for Risk Analysis, a former president of the International Society of Exposure Analysis, and a member of the Organizing Committee for the International Life-Cycle Initiative, which is a joint effort of the United Nations Environment Programme and the Society for Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry. His research interests include the use of multimedia compartment models in health-risk assessments, chemical transport and transformation in the environment, and measuring and modeling the biophysics of contaminant transport from the environment into the microenvironments with which humans have contact and across the human–environment exchange boundaries—skin, lungs, and gut. One of Dr. McKone’s most recognized achievements was his development of the CalTOX risk-assessment framework for the California Environmental Protection Agency (CalEPA). In 2007, he was appointed by the governor to the Scientific Guidance Panel of the California Environmental Contaminant Biomonitoring Program and continues to serve on this panel. Dr. McKone also served on National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences National Advisory Environmental Health Sciences Council. He is currently a member of the Academies Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology and has been a member of several NRC committees, including the Committee on Environmental Decision Making: Principles and Criteria for Models, the Committee on Improving Risk Analysis Approaches Used by the U.S. EPA, the Committee on Human Health Reassessment of TCDD and Related Compounds, and the Subcommittee on Zinc Cadmium Sulfide. He served as PI for the NRC study on Strategies to Protect the Health of Deployed U.S. Forces: Detecting, Characterizing, and Documenting Exposures.
Kenneth R. Still, Ph.D., is a retired U.S. Navy captain (O-6) in the Medical Service Corps. Dr. Still completed his Navy career as the senior director of the Navy Occupational Health and Safety Program for the commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Previously, he was the Officer-in-Charge of the Navy’s Toxicology Research Laboratory and Program, located in Dayton, Ohio. Dr. Still retired from the U.S. Navy in November 2005 and is currently the scientific director and senior toxicology and industrial hygiene consultant for Occupational Toxicology Associates, Inc., Lake Oswego, Oregon. He chaired an independent toxicology panel for an international corporation addressing risk and exposure assessment for more than 1,700 chemicals and has provided consulting services for several Department of Defense programs, including the Breast Cancer Research Program under the aegis of the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program. He currently holds an adjunct professorship at Portland State University, School of Community Health, where he teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in environmental health, and is active in the Oregon Masters of Public Health Program. Dr. Still’s research has addressed the areas of neurobehavioral, reproductive, inhalation/respiratory, biochemical, and occupational toxicology. He received Vice President Al Gore’s Hammer Award for Reinventing Government for work on the EPA Acute Exposure Guidelines. Dr. Still has more than 250 publications in the areas of his research. He holds certifications in the comprehensive practice of industrial hygiene, toxicology, safety, hazardous materials management, and several environmental arenas including environmental auditing and management. He is a fellow of the Academy of Toxicological Sciences and of the American Industrial Hygiene Association. Dr. Still is currently serving on the Academies Committee on Toxicology, the Acute Exposure Guidelines Committee, and the Spacecraft Exposure Guidelines
Committee. He received an M.B.A. in financial management from Chaminade University of Honolulu, an M.S. in physiological ecology from Portland State University, and his Ph.D. in physiological ecology from Oklahoma State University. Dr. Still previously served on the IOM Committee for Presumptive Disability Decision Making Process and the Committee on Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans and Agent Orange Exposure.
Beth A. Virnig, Ph.D., M.P.H., is a professor and senior associate dean for academic affairs and research at the University of Minnesota (UMN) School of Public Health. She has a doctorate in epidemiology and is an expert in the use of Medicare and other administrative data for studying health care use and outcomes. She is principal investigator of the UMN DEcIDE comparative effectiveness center and is an investigator with the Research Data Assistance Center and the Women’s Health Initiative. Her work focuses on clinical research, including late effects of care, access to care, and the role of health care on disease outcomes. She is a member of the Delta Omega Public Health Honor Society.
Yiliang Zhu, Ph.D., is a professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics of the College of Public Health at the University of South Florida where he directs the college’s Center for Collaborative Research and the Biostatistics Ph.D. program. He is also a professor of internal medicine in the Morsani College of Medicine at the University of South Florida. From 2013 to 2015 he was a research fellow with the EPA as a Science and Technology Policy Fellow of the American Association for Advancement of Science. Prior to that he was a 2012-2013 Fulbright Fellow in China where he launched the Loess Health Project, a 15-year cohort study of rural health and policy in northwestern China. His current research is focused on health risk assessment, including integrative system modeling based on adverse outcome pathways; exposure to indoor health hazards; evaluation of health care policies, systems, and health outcomes; and biostatistical methods for spatiotemporal data. Dr. Zhu has served as a member of a number of Academies committees, including those on the EPA’s assessment of dioxin and related compounds, tetrachloroethylene, and formaldehyde, and the Committees on Science for the Future of EPA and on the EPA’s IRIS Process Review. He was also a member of the Department of Health and Human Services’ Advisory Committee of Organ Transplantation.
CONSULTANTS
Daniel H. Freeman, Jr., Ph.D., is a Professor Emeritus of Preventive Medicine and Community Health (Biostatistics) and former director of the Office of Biostatistics at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. He has a doctorate in biostatistics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has served on the faculty at Yale University School of Public Health, Dartmouth Medical School, and the University of Puerto Rico School of Public Health. He has published more than 200 scientific papers and one monograph, Applied Categorical Data Analysis.
Cynthia C. Johnson is a medical records and health information technician at the Virginia Department of Health Statistics in Richmond. She is a certified medical classification specialist/nosologist with training from the National Center for Health Statistics in using International Classification of Disease mortality coding. She has considerable experience in
interpreting, coding, and classifying medical mortality, multiple cause of death, and underlying cause of death using procedures governed by the National Center for Health Statistics.
Alfred K. Mbah, Ph.D., is a biostatistician, with extensive experience in data analysis applied to health sciences. He is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics in the College of Public Health at the University of South Florida. Dr. Mbah has coauthored numerous peer-reviewed articles. He has served as the lead statistician on multiple studies that examine health disparities and has taught numerous courses in various areas of statistics for more than 7 years.
James E. Quinn, M.S., is a retired U.S. Navy Commander (Surface Warfare Specialist and Marine Transportation Subspecialist). He served in small combatants (destroyer escorts, destroyers, and guided missile destroyers) in weapons, operations, and executive billets. Assignments ashore included operations instructor at the U.S. Naval Academy, Senior Riverine Warfare advisor to the South Vietnamese Navy, and fleet operations assignments with the Military Sealift Command. He graduated from the U.S. Naval War College (Command and Staff) and earned his M.S. in management from the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School. Following retirement from the Navy, he served for 20 years as an operations specialist in a number of contracts with the Departments of Defense and Energy.
