Appendix A
Committee Member Biographical Sketches
Jonathan M. Samet (Chair), is a pulmonary physician and epidemiologist and dean of the Colorado School of Public Health. His research has focused on the health risks posed by the environment, including inhaled pollutants and tobacco. He has served on numerous committees concerned with public health and the environment: the Science Advisory Board of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; committees of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, including chairing the Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation VI Committee, the Committee on Incorporating 21st Century Science in Risk-Based Evaluations, the Committee on Research Priorities for Airborne Particulate Matter, the Committee to Review EPA’s Draft Integrated Risk Information System Assessment of Formaldehyde, the Committee to Review the IRIS Process, and the Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology, among others; and the National Cancer Advisory Board. Dr. Samet is a member of the National Academy of Medicine. He received his MD from the University of Rochester, School of Medicine and Dentistry, and his master’s degree in epidemiology from the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health.
Aisha S. Dickerson is assistant professor of epidemiology and Bloomberg professor of American health in environmental challenges at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She is an environmental neuroepidemiologist with primary research interests in environmental risk factors for neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative disorders, including autism spectrum disorder, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and dementia. Additionally, she investigates the influence of disparities in autism assessment and service provision, along with environmental justice issues in under-served communities. Dr. Dickerson holds a BS in biology and MSPH in epidemiology from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and PhD in epidemiology from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. She received a year of postdoctoral training at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency before completing a postdoctoral fellowship at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health.
Dana C. Dolinoy serves as National Science Foundation international chair of environmental health sciences and professor of environmental health sciences and nutritional sciences at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, and as director of the Michigan Lifestage Environmental Exposures and Disease (M-LEEaD) Center. She leads the Environmental Epigenetics and Nutrition Laboratory, which investigates how nutritional and environmental factors interact with epigenetic gene regulation to shape health and disease. Dr. Dolinoy serves as associate editor of Environmental Health Perspectives, Environmental Epigenetics, and Toxicological Sciences, and served as chair of the Gordon Research Conference in Cellular & Molecular Mechanisms of Toxicity. She has been an invited speaker at numerous national and international meetings and authored more than 130 peer-reviewed scientific manuscripts and 10 book chapters. In 2011, Dr. Dolinoy received the Norman Kretchmer Memorial Award from the American Society for Nutrition and the Classic Paper of the Year Award from Environmental Health Perspectives. In 2015, she received a National Institutes of Health Director’s Transformative Award to develop piRNA epigenetic editing technologies, and in 2021 received the Society of Toxicology Leading Edge in Basic Sciences Award. She has previously served on the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine committee on veterans and Agent Orange. Dr. Dolinoy holds a PhD in genetics and
genomics and integrated toxicology from Duke University, and an MSc in public health from Harvard University
David C. Dorman is professor of toxicology in the Department of Molecular Biomedical Sciences at North Carolina State University. His research interests include neurotoxicology, nasal toxicology, pharmacokinetics, and cognition and olfaction in animals. He is an elected fellow of the Academy of Toxicological Sciences, a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences, and a diplomate of the American Board of Veterinary Toxicology and the American Board of Toxicology. Dr. Dorman has chaired or served on multiple National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine committees. He completed a combined PhD and veterinary toxicology residency program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and holds a DVM from Colorado State University.
Rakesh Ghosh is senior scientist at the University of California, San Francisco, and teaches epidemiology and research methods in the School of Medicine. He has more than 15 years of research experience in examining the effects of environmental pollutants on maternal and newborn health. Dr. Ghosh’s contributions include studying the global burden of adverse perinatal outcomes, including neonatal mortality attributable to PM2.5 air pollution, and novel evidence about the effect of air pollution, which goes beyond respiratory health and is likely more profound, affecting early childhood growth. He has received several conference awards recognizing his cutting-edge work in this field. Dr. Ghosh has a PhD in environmental epidemiology.
Sabine S. Lange is chief toxicologist at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ). Her responsibilities include conducting and overseeing health effects risk assessments of air permit applications, ambient air monitoring projects, and hazardous waste sites; development of chemical toxicity factors; and systematic reviews and independent analyses of risk assessments. Dr. Lange’s research interests include the toxicology and risk assessment of air pollutants and risk assessment methods used for derivation of toxicity factors. She has served on several peer-review committees for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, including as a former member of the chartered Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee. TCEQ intends to sponsor a separate National Academies consensus study to provide an independent peer review of TCEQ’s ethylene oxide cancer risk assessment. Dr. Lange is not involved in the procurement of that separate activity. Dr. Lange received a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry from the University of Western Ontario in Canada, and completed a PhD and postdoctoral training in biochemistry and molecular carcinogenesis at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. Dr. Lange is a diplomate of the American Board of Toxicology.
Andrew F. Olshan is Barbara S. Hulka Distinguished Professor in the Department of Epidemiology of the Gillings School of Global Public Health at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill. He served as chair of the department from 2006 to 2018. He is associate director of population sciences, UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center. Dr. Olshan’s major interests include the epidemiology of cancer and perinatal and pediatric outcomes. His cancer research has focused on genetic and environmental risk factors for childhood cancer, breast cancer, head and neck cancer, and endometrial cancer. He has led multiple cancer studies in North Carolina and nationally and has been principal investigator for multiple studies funded by the National Cancer Institutes, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Dr. Olshan has served on the Institute of Medicine Committees to Review the Health Effects in Vietnam Veterans of Exposure to Herbicides. He was vice-chair of the National Research Council’s Committee to Review the Draft IRIS Assessment of Formaldehyde. He is editor-in-chief of
Current Epidemiology Reports and past president of the Society for Epidemiologic Research. Dr. Olshan received his doctorate in epidemiology from the University of Washington in Seattle and was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of British Columbia in Canada.
Ivan Rusyn is professor in the Department of Veterinary Physiology and Pharmacology in the College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at Texas A&M University. He is also chair of the Interdisciplinary Faculty of Toxicology at Texas A&M University. His laboratory has an active research portfolio with a focus on the mechanisms of action of environmental toxicants, the genetic determinants of susceptibility to toxicant-induced injury, and the use of new approach methods in regulatory toxicology. His studies on health effects of environmental agents have resulted in more than 300 peer-reviewed publications. Dr. Rusyn is a member of the Research Committee of the Health Effects Institute and was on the Board of Scientific Councilors of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. He also serves as principal investigator of a research consortium funded, in part, by the American Chemistry Council; the funders have no role in directing the research or reviewing publications, and Dr. Rusyn draws no salary from the consortium. He has served on several committees of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, including the Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology, the Committee on Incorporating 21st Century Science into Risk-Based Evaluations, and the Committee on the Design and Evaluation of Safer Chemical Substitutions. Most recently, he chaired the Committee to Review the Report on Long-Term Health Effects on Army Test Subjects and the Workshop Committee to Support Development of EPA’s IRIS Toxicological Reviews. Dr. Rusyn received his MD from Ukrainian State Medical University in Kyiv and his PhD in toxicology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Lianne Sheppard is Rohm & Haas Endowed Professor at the University of Washington School of Public Health, and is a member of the departments of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, and Biostatistics. Her research interests focus on environmental epidemiology and statistical methods for understanding the health effects of environmental and occupational exposures; they include study design, measurement error, exposure modeling and estimation, and estimation of environmental exposure effects with application to a wide range of health outcomes including cancer, brain health, and cardiovascular disease measures. Dr. Sheppard is a fellow of the American Statistical Association and the 2020 recipient of the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology Research Integrity Award. She is currently chair of the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee and a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the US Environmental Protection Agency. She previously served on the National Research Council Committee on Contaminated Drinking Water at Camp Lejeune. She holds a PhD in biostatistics.
Katya Tsaioun is executive director of the Evidence-Based Toxicology Collaboration at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where she leads international efforts to establish evidence-based methodologies and systematic reviews in toxicology. Her research has focused on translation of scientific innovations into technologies enabling improvements in public health. Dr. Tsaioun spent two decades in translational drug discovery research and development in assay development for high-throughput screening and ADME (absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion) and toxicology. Based on this experience, she founded a company leading commercialization and application of drug de-risking technologies. Dr. Tsaioun has served on the advisory boards of companies, charities, and review committees at the National Institutes of Health, and serves with private foundations focused on developing therapies for neurodegenerative diseases. She served on committees with the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in 2018–2020 to review the Integrated Risk Information System and Toxic Substances Control Act
systematic review processes. Dr. Tsaioun earned a PhD in human nutrition science from Tufts University Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, and completed postdoctoral training in neurochemistry at Harvard Medical School.
Joseph Wiemels is professor in the Center for Genetic Epidemiology in the Department of Population and Public Health Sciences and associate director of the Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Southern California. He has been a faculty member for more than 21 years, with previous appointments at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Wiemels studies the molecular epidemiology of childhood leukemia and brain cancer, concentrating on etiology and prevention and incorporating concepts of genetic susceptibility and interaction with environmental exposures and infections. His research group consists of both laboratory- and computational-based scientists who are focused on the interaction of inherited genetics and environmental factors in causing specific mutational and epigenetic changes, and the specific timing of these events during the development of the child. Dr. Wiemels’ doctoral work examined the metabolism and toxicity of benzene and butadiene. Throughout his career, he has worked on establishing mechanistic relationships between environmental agents and cancer risk. He was a Leukemia and Lymphoma Society scholar and is a member of several scientific societies, including the American Association for Cancer Research and the American Society of Hematology. Dr. Wiemels was also a reviewer of the 2011 Formaldehyde Report.
Lauren Zeise is director of the California Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment. She oversees the department’s activities, which include the development of risk assessments, hazard evaluations, toxicity reviews, cumulative impact analyses, frameworks and methods for assessing toxicity and cumulative effects of vulnerability and environmental exposures on communities, and the department’s activities in the California Environmental Contaminant Biomonitoring Program. Dr. Zeise was the 2008 recipient of the Society for Risk Analysis’ Outstanding Practitioners Award. She has served on advisory boards and committees of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Office of Technology Assessment, the World Health Organization, and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. Dr. Zeise has served on numerous National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine committees, including the Committee to Review Advances to the IRIS Process, the Committee on Incorporating 21st Century Science in Risk-Based Evaluations, and the Committee to Review EPA’s Draft Integrated Risk Information System Assessment of Formaldehyde. Dr. Zeise received a PhD from Harvard University.
Yiliang Zhu is professor and chief in the Division of Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Preventive Medicine of the School of Medicine at the University of New Mexico (UNM). Prior to joining UNM in 2017, he was professor and founding director of the biostatistics PhD program in the Center for Collaborative Research at the University of South Florida College of Public Health. His research focuses on data analytic methods in health risk assessment, including integrative modeling of biological systems, dose-response modeling, benchmark-dose methods, and uncertainty quantification. He also conducts work in biostatistics methods, health service research, as well as directs an ongoing cohort study of the rural health care system and policies in northwestern Loess Plateau China. Dr. Zhu was a Fulbright scholar and studied public policy in China (2012–2013); he was also a science and technology policy fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the US Environmental Protection Agency (2013–2015). Dr. Zhu has served on a number of National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine committees, including the Committee to Review EPA’s Draft IRIS Assessment of Formaldehyde, Committee to Review the IRIS Process, and Committee to Review Advances Made to the IRIS Process, among others.
