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Gulf War and Health: Volume 11: Generational Health Effects of Serving in the Gulf War (2018)

Chapter: Appendix A: Committee Biographical Sketches

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Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Committee Biographical Sketches." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2018. Gulf War and Health: Volume 11: Generational Health Effects of Serving in the Gulf War. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25162.
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Appendix A

Committee Biographical Sketches

Kenneth S. Ramos, M.D., Ph.D., PharmB. (NAM), is the associate vice president for precision health sciences, the interim dean of the University of Arizona College of Medicine, the executive director of the Center for Applied Genetics and Genomic Medicine, and a professor of medicine at the University of Arizona Health Sciences. Dr. Ramos is a leading expert in the study of the molecular mechanisms of environmental injury and the genetic and epigenetic determinants of environmental disease. A major focus of his research is the study of mammalian retroelements and endogenous retroviral-like sequences and their role in human pathogenesis. He completed undergraduate studies in pharmaceutical sciences at the University of Puerto Rico, a Ph.D. in biochemical pharmacology at the University of Texas at Austin, and undergraduate and graduate medical studies with a focus on internal medicine and pulmonary medicine at the University of Louisville. Dr. Ramos is the 2008–2009 president of the Society of Toxicology and has served on numerous National Academies committees, including the committees responsible for the Veterans and Agent Orange: Update 1996 and Update 1998 reports, and he chaired the 2016 Update report. He has also served as a member of the National Research Council’s Committee on Application of Toxicogenomics Technologies to Predictive Toxicology, Committee on Emerging Issues and Data on Environmental Contaminants, and Committee on Application of Genomic Signatures: A Workshop. He is currently serving on the Roundtable on Public Interfaces of Life Sciences and is co-chair of the Committee on Sustainable Infrastructures for Public Communication of the Life Sciences: A Workshop. Dr. Ramos was designated an associate of the National Academy of Sciences in 2008 and elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2015.

Tracy L. Bale, Ph.D., is a professor of pharmacology and the director of the Center for Epigenetic Research in Child Health and Brain Development in the School of Medicine at the University of Maryland, Baltimore. She completed her Ph.D. at the University of Washington in the Department of Pharmacology and her postdoctoral work at the Salk Institute with Dr. Wylie Vale. Her research focuses on understanding the role of stress dysregulation in neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric diseases and the sex differences that underlie disease vulnerability, using mice as the model organism. Dr. Bale’s laboratory has initiated multiple lines of investigation that examine the timing and sex-specificity of early life

Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Committee Biographical Sketches." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2018. Gulf War and Health: Volume 11: Generational Health Effects of Serving in the Gulf War. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25162.
×

events promoting disease susceptibility, the maturation of central pathways during key periods of development, and the epigenetic mechanisms involved in long-term effects following stress exposure. Her expertise is in developing models of parental stress and the germ cell epigenetic mechanisms involved in the intergenerational programming of neurodevelopment. She serves on numerous advisory committees, panels, and boards, served as the chair of the Neuroendocrinology, Neuroimmunology, Rhythms, and Sleep Center for Scientific Review study section, and has been a reviewing editor at the Journal of Neuroscience for the past 6 years. She has been the recipient of several awards for her research in this area, including the Richard E. Weitzman Memorial award from the Endocrine Society, the Medtronic Award from the Society for Women’s Health Research for improvement of women’s health, and recently the Daniel H. Efron award from the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology.

John R. Balmes, M.D., is a professor of medicine in the division of occupational and environmental medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, and also a professor of environmental health sciences at the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Balmes studies the respiratory health effects of various air pollutants. He has a particular interest in occupational respiratory disease. He has investigated the acute effects of inhalation exposures to ambient air pollutants in his human exposure laboratory at San Francisco General Hospital and the chronic effects of such exposures in epidemiological studies with collaborators at the University of California, San Francisco, and the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Balmes also is investigating genetic determinants of responses to air pollutants and has been the physician member of the California Air Resources Board since 2008. He was a member of the Institute of Medicine’s Committee on the Long-Term Health Effects of Exposure to Burn Pits in Iraq and Afghanistan and Committee on the Review of the Department of Labor’s Site Exposure Matrix (SEM) Database. Dr. Balmes received his M.D. from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

Brenda Eskenazi, Ph.D., is a professor of epidemiology at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Public Health. She is also the director of the Children’s Center for Environmental Health and is the chair of community health and human development. Her research interests are in the effects of environmental exposures (such as pesticides, lead, solvents, dioxin, and tobacco smoke) on reproductive, perinatal, and children’s health as well as the reproductive and development effects of environmental toxicants on fetal and child health and reproductive health in men and women and also reproductive and pediatric epidemiology. Dr. Eskenazi was a member of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Board on Children, Youth and Families and served on the National Research Council’s Committee to Review California’s Risk Assessment Process for Pesticides. She received her M.A. in psychology from Queens College and her Ph.D. in neuropsychology from the City University of New York.

Elaine M. Faustman, Ph.D., is a professor in environmental and occupational health sciences in the School of Public Health at the University of Washington. She is the director of the Institute for Risk Analysis and Risk Communication, the Center for Child Environmental Health Risks Research, and the Pacific Northwest Center for Human Health and Ocean Studies. Dr. Faustman is a developmental and reproductive toxicologist with an interest in biological monitoring and modeling. Her published research is on children’s environmental health, in vitro toxicology, and the effect of pesticides, drugs, and food additives and contaminants on children’s health. Her current research focuses on the neurodevelopmental toxicity of metals and pesticides, gene expression analyses as early biomarkers of effect, and the mechanisms of methylmercury-induced developmental toxicity. Dr. Faustman was the chair for

Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Committee Biographical Sketches." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2018. Gulf War and Health: Volume 11: Generational Health Effects of Serving in the Gulf War. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25162.
×

the National Research Council (NRC) report on developmental toxicology and has previously served as a member of the NRC’s Committee on Toxicology and other NRC committees. She received her Ph.D. in toxicology from Michigan State University.

Mari S. Golub, Ph.D., is an adjunct professor emerita with the Department of Environmental Toxicology at the University of California, Davis. Her research focuses on developmental neurotoxicity, with an emphasis on the behavioral assessment of brain function. She uses mouse and nonhuman primates to study the influence of nutrition, drugs, and chemicals on brain development. She also conducts risk assessments for the California Environmental Protection Agency (CalEPA). Dr. Golub recently retired from the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment at CalEPA where she performed risk assessments in the area of developmental and reproductive toxicology. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Michigan.

Rafael A. Irizarry, Ph.D., is a professor of biostatistics in the Department of Biostatistics and Computational Biology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute at Harvard University. Dr. Irizarry’s research interests focus on applied statistics, epigenetics, cancer genomics, and high-throughput technology. He was a member of the National Research Council planning committee on Training Students to Extract Value from Big Data: A Workshop. Dr. Irizarry received his Ph.D. in statistics from the University of California, Berkeley.

Tamarra James-Todd, Ph.D., M.P.H., is the Mark and Catherine Winkler Assistant Professor of Environmental Reproductive and Perinatal Epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, an associate epidemiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and an instructor in medicine at Harvard Medical School. She is an epidemiologist with a research expertise in reproductive and developmental outcomes following exposure to environmental risk factors. She has conducted epidemiologic research on perinatal and reproductive health outcomes in Kuwait (the TRACER study) and has assessed the impact of environmental endocrine disruptors on women’s reproductive outcomes. Dr. James-Todd has also examined the impact of in utero exposures and long-term chronic disease risk. She received her Ph.D. in epidemiology from Columbia University and M.P.H. in international health from the Boston University School of Public Health.

Stephen A. Krawetz, Ph.D., is the Charlotte B. Failing Professor of Fetal Therapy and Diagnosis and the associate director of the C.S. Mott Center for Human Growth and Development in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Center for Molecular Medicine and Genetics, Wayne State University School of Medicine, Detroit, Michigan. He is the founding editor-in-chief of Systems Biology in Reproductive Medicine. He received his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Toronto and then trained as an Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research postdoctoral fellow with Gordon Dixon at the University of Calgary. He has published more than 200 manuscripts detailing the regulation of gene expression by chromatin structure, emphasizing human spermatogenesis and its application to personalized medicine. Over the past two decades, his group established that the fitness of the paternal contribution reflects the relative diversity of sperm RNAs that continually respond to the environment. They showed that at fertilization the spermatozoon delivers a cadre of unique RNAs to the oocyte. These RNAs may provide an essential component to early paternal genome reprogramming, acting as genetic and epigenetic impactors of the fetal onset of adult disease. They provide a personalized time stamp of the physical and reproductive health of the father, providing the opportunity to develop a personalized blueprint promoting the birth and healthy life of his children.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Committee Biographical Sketches." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2018. Gulf War and Health: Volume 11: Generational Health Effects of Serving in the Gulf War. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25162.
×

Linda A. McCauley, Ph.D., FAAN, RN (NAM), is a professor in and the dean of Emory University’s Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing. Dr. McCauley has special expertise in the design of epidemiological investigations of environmental hazards and is nationally recognized for her expertise in occupational and environmental health nursing. She is a national leader in the area of research on environmental exposures such as pesticide exposures among minority communities. Her work aims to identify culturally appropriate interventions to decrease the impact of environmental and occupational health hazards in vulnerable populations, including workers and young children. Dr. McCauley was previously the associate dean for research and the Nightingale Professor in Nursing at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing. She received a bachelor of nursing degree from the University of North Carolina, a master’s in nursing from Emory, and a Ph.D. in environmental health and epidemiology from the University of Cincinnati. She became a member of the National Academy of Medicine in 2008 and has served on numerous Institute of Medicine committees, including for the Update 2006 and Update 2008 in the Veterans and Agent Orange series. She is currently a member of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Board on Population Health and Public Health Practice.

Jacob D. McDonald, Ph.D., is a senior scientist and the vice president of applied sciences at Lovelace Respiratory Research Institute. He serves as the chief science officer for Lovelace Biomedical, the commercial services arm of Lovelace. Dr. McDonald’s core expertise is in toxicology (emphasis in respiratory), analytical chemistry, and risk assessment. Dr. McDonald previously served on the National Research Council’s Committee to Review the Army’s Enhanced Particulate Matter Surveillance Project Report and the Institute of Medicine committees on the Long-Term Health Effects of Exposure to Burn Pits in Iraq and Afghanistan and on the Acute Exposure Guidelines Levels for Selected Chemicals. He earned a Ph.D. in environmental chemistry and toxicology from the University of Nevada.

Dylan S. Small, Ph.D., is a professor in the department of statistics at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. His research interests include causal inference, the design and analysis of experiments and observational studies for comparing treatments, longitudinal data, measurement error, and applications of statistics to public health, medicine, and public policy. He is the editor of the journal Observational Studies. Recently, he was a member of the National Research Council Panel on Research Methodologies and Statistical Approaches to Understanding Driver Fatigue Factors in Motor Carrier Safety and Driver Health. Dr. Small received his Ph.D. in statistics from Stanford University.

Jacquetta Trasler, M.D., Ph.D., is a James McGill Professor in Pediatrics, Human Genetics and Pharmacology and Therapeutics at McGill University and a senior scientist at the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC). Dr. Trasler has mentored a number of trainees and served as the director of pediatric research at the RI-MUHC (2008–2015) and the McGill University M.D./Ph.D. Program (1999–2007). Her research interests focus on epigenetics and the molecular and developmental regulation of gene expression in the germ line and early embryo. More specifically, she studies DNA methylation and genomic imprinting and the molecular and cellular targets for drug effects on germ cells and embryos. Ongoing studies include the effects of drugs, diet (folate), and assisted reproductive technologies on the epigenome of germ cells and embryos and the implications for transgenerational passage of epigenetic defects.

Cheryl Lyn Walker, Ph.D., is the director of the Center for Precision Environmental Health at Baylor College of Medicine, where she holds the Alkek Presidential Chair and is a professor in the departments of molecular and cell biology and medicine. She also directs the National Institute of Environmental

Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Committee Biographical Sketches." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2018. Gulf War and Health: Volume 11: Generational Health Effects of Serving in the Gulf War. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25162.
×

Health Sciences’ (NIEHS’s) Center for Translational Environmental Health Research and serves on the board of scientific advisers for the National Cancer Institute. Dr. Walker is an international leader in environmental carcinogenesis and the elucidation of molecular mechanisms of disease. Her studies on the role of the epigenome in gene–environment interactions have yielded significant insights into mechanisms by which early life exposures influence health and disease across the lifecourse. Her work has also led to the discovery of new tumor suppressor functions in the cell and a dual role for the cell’s epigenetic machinery in regulating both chromatin and the cytoskeleton. She has been recognized with the Dallas–Ft. Worth Living Legend Faculty Achievement Award in Basic Research from MD Anderson Cancer Center, the Cozarrelli Prize from the National Academy of Sciences, the 2015 Outstanding Distinguished Scientist Award from Sigma Xi, and the 2016 Leading Edge in Basic Research Award from the Society of Toxicology. Dr. Walker is a fellow of the Academy of Toxicological Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science and in 2016 was elected to National Academy of Medicine. She is a past-president of the Society of Toxicology, past-president of Women in Cancer Research of the American Association for Cancer Research, and has participated on committees for the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council. Dr. Walker earned her Ph.D. in 1984 in cell biology from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School, with additional postdoctoral training as a staff fellow at NIEHS.

Carol S. Wood, Ph.D., is a staff scientist in the Environmental Sciences Division of Oak Ridge National Laboratory. She has more than 20 years of experience as a toxicologist, with extensive work in risk assessment for inhalation/pulmonary effects and the oral toxicity of heavy metals, pesticides, and industrial chemicals. She has worked on acute exposure guideline levels and provisional advisory levels, in which health-based exposure levels were developed for priority toxic chemicals. These projects often used toxicokinetic data and physiologically based pharmacokinetic models for extrapolation from animals to humans. She served on the board of directors for the American Board of Toxicology from 2014 to 2017. Her research experience and interests include models of developmental, reproductive, and neurotoxic outcomes from environmental contaminants. Dr. Wood has served on the Institute of Medicine’s Committee on the Review of Clinical Guidance for the Care of Health Conditions Identified by the Camp Lejeune Legislation and the National Research Council’s Committee on Spacecraft Exposure Guidelines. She earned a Ph.D. in toxicology from Oregon State University in 1993 with emphasis in developmental and reproductive toxicology.

Robert O. Wright, M.D., M.P.H., is Ethel H. Wise Professor of Pediatrics and the chair of the Department of Environmental Medicine and Public Health at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. His research interests focus on effect modifiers of metal toxicity, including gene–environment interactions and the role of toxic stress in neurodevelopment and fetal growth. The role of epigenetic biomarkers in reproductive health is a particular interest. He founded the Programming Research in Obesity, Growth, Environment and Social Stressors in 2006 in Mexico City. Dr. Wright is a pediatrician with clinical fellowship training in emergency medicine and medical toxicology. He also completed research fellowships in environmental epidemiology and genetic epidemiology. He is the director of the Lautenberg Laboratory for Environmental Health Sciences at Mount Sinai as well as the Mount Sinai CHEAR (Children’s Health Exposure Analysis Resource) lab hub. He has served as a member of the National Research Council’s Committee on Inorganic Arsenic and Committee on the Superfund Site Assessment and Remediation in the Coeur d’Alene River Basin. Dr. Wright received his M.D. from the University of Michigan, completed his pediatrics residency at Northwestern University, and received his M.P.H. in epidemiology and biostatistics from the Harvard School of Public Health.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Committee Biographical Sketches." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2018. Gulf War and Health: Volume 11: Generational Health Effects of Serving in the Gulf War. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25162.
×

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Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Committee Biographical Sketches." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2018. Gulf War and Health: Volume 11: Generational Health Effects of Serving in the Gulf War. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25162.
×
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Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Committee Biographical Sketches." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2018. Gulf War and Health: Volume 11: Generational Health Effects of Serving in the Gulf War. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25162.
×
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Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Committee Biographical Sketches." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2018. Gulf War and Health: Volume 11: Generational Health Effects of Serving in the Gulf War. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25162.
×
Page 485
Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Committee Biographical Sketches." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2018. Gulf War and Health: Volume 11: Generational Health Effects of Serving in the Gulf War. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25162.
×
Page 486
Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Committee Biographical Sketches." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2018. Gulf War and Health: Volume 11: Generational Health Effects of Serving in the Gulf War. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25162.
×
Page 487
Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Committee Biographical Sketches." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2018. Gulf War and Health: Volume 11: Generational Health Effects of Serving in the Gulf War. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25162.
×
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For the United States, the 1991 Persian Gulf War was a brief and successful military operation with few injuries and deaths. However, soon after returning from duty, a large number of veterans began reporting health problems they believed were associated with their service in the Gulf. At the request of Congress, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine has been conducting an ongoing review of the evidence to determine veterans' long-term health problems and potential causes.

Some of the health effects identified by past reports include post-traumatic stress disorders, other mental health disorders, Gulf War illness, respiratory effects, and self-reported sexual dysfunction. Veterans' concerns regarding the impacts of deployment-related exposures on their health have grown to include potential adverse effects on the health of their children and grandchildren. These concerns now increasingly involve female veterans, as more women join the military and are deployed to war zones and areas that pose potential hazards.

Gulf War and Health: Volume 11 evaluates the scientific and medical literature on reproductive and developmental effects and health outcomes associated with Gulf War and Post-9/11 exposures, and designates research areas requiring further scientific study on potential health effects in the descendants of veterans of any era.

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