Superfund Basic Research Program: 20 Years of Success and a Vision for the Future
December 3-5, 2007 Washington Duke Inn Durham, North Carolina
Conference Overview
December 3-5, 2007 marked the 20th Anniversary of the Superfund Basic Research Program (SBRP). The two and a half day annual meeting, appropriately titled, "20 Years of Success and a Vision for the Future," took place in Durham, North Carolina at the Washington Duke Inn. There were over 350 attendees, including graduate students and post-docs fellows, researchers, grantees, administrators, and program partners.
North Carolina Congressman, David Price, Ph.D., opened the first day's session with remarks emphasizing SBRP's contributions to U.S. environmental health. Other keynote speakers included SBRP partners, Susan Bodine, J.D., assistant administrator to the U.S. EPA, OSWER, and Henry Falk, M.D., director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Center for Environmental Health; Dr. Sandra Steingraber, author of Living Downstream; and Dr. Bruce Hammock, distinguished professor from UC Davis.
Four plenary sessions showcased research advances and student/post-doc presentations in environmental health sciences; sessions focused on metals and arsenic, computational approaches, biological and environmental indicators, and innovative technologies.
The 2007 meeting also marked the 10th Anniversary of the Karen E. Wetterhahn Award. Dr. Wetterhahn was the Program Director for Dartmouth College's SBRP from 1995-1997. She died in 1997 following an accidental exposure to a few drops of dimethylmercury. Dr. Roxanne Karimi received the Wetterhahn Award for her work on "The Ecophysiology of Metal Accumulation in Aquatic Food Webs," which she presented to an audience of 300 on Tuesday, December 4th.
Student poster sessions were held on Monday and Tuesday evenings. Four students were recognized for their research and presentation. The awardees, Elizabeth Oesterling (University of Kentucky), Bryan W. Clark (Duke University), Courtney Kozul (Dartmouth College), and Karen Wovkulich (Columbia University), were recognized at the Wednesday morning Colloquium, "Visions for the Future," which focused on the highlights of the SBRP, past and present, and the Program's future.
December 3-5, 2007
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