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New Investigators
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The EPA/NIEHS Children's Centers program provides opportunities for professional development of new scientists in the field of children's environmental health. Here are just some examples of new researchers who are already making contributions to the field.
- Timothy J. Buckley, Ph.D., CIH.
Dr. Buckley is Associate Professor and Chair of the Division of Environmental Health Sciences at Ohio State University, and was previously a new investigator with the Johns Hopkins Children's Center. Dr. Buckley’s professional activities have focused on the link between the environment and public health. He started his career as an environmental scientist with the United States Environmental Protection Agency in 1991. He worked in the National Exposure Research Laboratory where he conceived, designed, and conducted human exposures and biomarker validation studies to support the agency’s risk assessment and regulatory research needs. In 1996, he joined the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. There, his exposure assessment research became more health-oriented, investigating the effects of air pollution in susceptible subpopulations including children with asthma, elderly with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and exercising adults. He is a certified industrial hygienist with research interests in occupational exposure assessment with a particular interest in dermal hazards. While at Hopkins he was promoted to associate professor and had adjunct appointments in Epidemiology and Oncology. His research includes measuring the impact of traffic on community air pollution, the effects of air pollutants and allergens on asthma morbidity in inner-city children, development and validation of exposure biomarkers, and the assessment of protection from dermal hazards in the workplace.
http://cph.osu.edu/divisions/ehs/ehsfacstaff/buckleyt/
- Gloria Coronado, Ph.D.
Working with researchers at the University of Washington Children's Center, Dr. Coronado became involved in studies designed to reduce exposure to environmental toxicants. Dr. Coronado's community-based projects include a study to reduce pesticide exposure in the children of farmworkers. Families have been recruited to participate in a study which includes questionnaires, urine and blood samples and dust collection from homes and vehicles. More broadly, Dr. Coronado is involved in research on health disparities and health promotion in the Latino population. She is the Principal Investigator on a pilot project with New Mexico State University which explores whether a clinic reminder system can improve colorectal cancer outcomes among Latinos living in nearby colonias. She is the co-investigator on community-based research projects testing innovative strategies for the prevention of cancer and improved detection and management of diabetes among Latino in Eastern Washington. Dr. Coronado is an Assistant Member in the Cancer Prevention Program at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the University of Washington. For the past decade, she has been mentored by Dr. Beti Thompson.
http://myprofile.cos.com/gcoronad
http://www.fhcrc.org/about/pubs/center_news/2004/dec16/sart1.html
- Timothy Dvonch, Ph.D. and Toby Lewis, M.D. Working at the University of Michigan Children's Center with co-director Gerald Keeler, Ph.D., Timothy Dvonch, Ph.D. has played a leading role in the exposure assessment for many studies, including development of new unique instrumentation, field methods for data collection, data analysis, and writing of manuscripts. Toby Lewis, M.D., M.P.H., is a pediatric pulmonologist who has played a major role in the development and conduct of the intervention and in the collection, interpretation, and data analysis of health-related information. She has taken a leading role in writing manuscripts concerning both epidemiologic and intervention aspects of the study. Her scientific interests include understanding the respiratory health impacts of the indoor and outdoor environment on children, and designing and implementing public health interventions to minimize or eliminate these risks. With the mentorship of Thomas Robins, M.D., M.P.H. and other University of Michigan Children's Center investigators, she has been awarded a career development grant from the NIH and is currently examining the acute health effects of diesel exhaust exposure among asthmatic children. These are two young, talented scientists with tremendous promise who have been attracted to children's environmental health as their primary area of work because of the existence of the Michigan Children's Center. (Provided by the University of Michigan)
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Adrienne S. Ettinger, Sc.D., M.P.H.
Dr. Ettinger is a Research Scientist with the Harvard Children's Center and focuses on environmental epidemiology. Her research involves the epidemiologic analysis of cumulative exposure to metals and associated human health effects in several new and ongoing longitudinal birth cohort studies. This research is aimed at investigating placental and lactational transfer of environmental toxicants and perinatal outcomes. Another area of her work involves evaluating interventions to reduce environmental exposures, particularly lead dust, in the home. She is working to develop novel approaches to studying complex interactions between environmental exposures and other factors (i.e. nutrition, genetics, hormones, socio-behavioral factors). In her role as Center Scientist with the Harvard Children’s Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Research Center she is involved in community-based epidemiologic research at the Tar Creek Superfund Site in northeast Oklahoma. This is an area highly contaminated by metals (lead, cadmium, zinc, iron and others) in mining waste ("chat") and populated by many residents of Native American descent. The Harvard Children's Center is studying pregnant women in a new birth cohort to examine biological markers of fetal and early childhood exposure to metals, the impact of metal mixtures and psychological stress in predicting child neurocognitive development, and a randomized trial of nutritional and behavioral interventions aimed at reducing toxic metal absorption.
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/merg/members/ettinger.htm - Maida Galvez M.D., M.P.H.
Dr. Maida Galvez, a board certified Pediatrician, completed a three year Ambulatory Pediatric Association sponsored fellowship in Environmental Pediatrics at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York in June 2005. She is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Community and Preventive Medicine and the Department of Pediatrics. She directs Mount Sinai's Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Unit and also practices General Pediatrics. She is Co-Principal Investigator and a designated New Investigator of the EPA and NIEHS-funded research project "Growing Up Healthy in East Harlem," a community based participatory research project examining the environmental determinants of childhood obesity. She is also Co-Investigator of an NIEHS/NCI funded project assessing environmental determinants of puberty in girls. Her areas of interests include the urban built environment, endocrine disruptors, and childhood growth and development.
http://directory.mssm.edu/faculty/facultyInfo.php?id=28213&deptid=8 - Steve N. Georas, M.D.
Dr. Steve Georas is Professor of Medicine and Environmental Medicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center, and Director of the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine. From 1994-2006, Dr. Georas was a faculty member at Johns Hopkins University in the Pulmonary Division with a joint appointment in Environmental Health Sciences. He joined the John’s Hopkins Children’s Center in 2003, and has maintained this active collaboration since moving to the University of Rochester in 2006. Dr. Georas directs a research group investigating mechanisms of dendritic cell and T cell activation in allergic diseases. In 2002 he proposed that ambient particulate matter would be sensed as a “danger signal” by the lung’s innate immune system. During the past several years, Dr. Georas and Dr. Marc Williams (Assistant Professor of Medicine, University of Rochester) have been investigating various aspects of this proposition using in vitro and in vivo models of dendritic cell activation. Current studies are aimed at defining molecular pathways by which particulate matter activates dendritic cells and influences allergen-specific immunity. These studies should further our understanding of how inhaled pollutants affect respiratory immune responses with a long-term goal of alleviating the burden of asthma in vulnerable and susceptible human subjects.
https://www.urmc.edu/medicine/faculty.aspx?faculty=9394
- Nino Künzli, M.D., Ph.D., M.P.H.
Dr. Künzli is Associate Professor at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles (currently on leave of absence) and is Research Professor of the Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats (ICREA) at the Centre for Research in Environmental Epidemiology (CREAL), Institut Municipal d’Investigació Mèdica (IMIM) in Barcelona, Spain. His research focus is environmental epidemiology with an emphasis on air pollution epidemiology, including exposure and risk assessment. Novel ongoing projects in Los Angeles and Spain investigate the role of ambient air pollution in atherosclerosis. In the USC/UCLA Children’s Environmental Health Center he is involved in the development of methods to quantify the asthma burden of air pollution in local communities, such as those participating in the USC Children’s Health Study. Dr. Künzli received his M.D. from the University of Basel and his M.P.H. and Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley. - Susan Teitelbaum, Ph.D.
Dr. Teitelbaum is Assistant Professor in the Department of Community And Preventive Medicine of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine and is an investigator with the Mount Sinai Children's Center.
Children's Health continues to be a research priority for EPA's STAR grant program. Previous research solicitations have encouraged proposals in children's valuation, exposure methods and assessments, longitudinal studies, and the development and application of biomarkers of children's exposure, susceptibility, or effects related to environmental threats. See the website for the National Center for Environmental Research at http://www.epa.gov/ncer for more information.
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