Immediate Office

Harold Zenick , Ph.D.
Director , National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory

Dr. Harold Zenick is the Director for the National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory (NHEERL) in the Office of Research and Development in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Dr. Zenick earned a Ph.D. in Physiological Psychology from the University of Missouri (Columbia). He also completed a Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Toxicology at the University of Cincinnati. Prior to joining NHEERL, he was a Branch Chief in EPA's Office of Health and Environmental Assessment, Office of Research and Development. Before coming to EPA, Dr. Zenick spent 13 years in academia with the Department of Environmental Health in the University of Cincinnati Medical School preceded by an appointment at New Mexico Highlands University. Dr. Zenick serves as EPA's liaison to the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), the National Toxicology Program (NTP), and the National Center for Environmental Health/Centers for Disease Control (NCEH/CDC) Advisory Councils/Boards.

Currently Dr. Zenick serves as a U.S. Co-Chair of the Environmental Health Workgroup under the binational U.S.-Mexico Border 2012 Program. Within the Agency, he is Chair of the Agency's Health Effects Institute Advisory Board and is ORD's senior executive lead for environmental justice matters. . He has received numerous Agency awards including the prestigious Presidential Meritorious Executive Rank Award and the ORD Statesmanship award. Recently, he has had a leading role in several emerging programs at EPA including efforts to develop better indicators of public heath impact of environmental decisions. In this capacity, he has participated on a number of prominent National and Federal projects. Dr. Zenick also has the lead for the Office of Research and Development for several cross-EPA/cross-Federal Agency initiatives including the impact of the environment on the rapidly growing, aging population and the Futures of Toxicity Testing.

Dr. Zenick has over 100 publications. His current interests are in integrating human health and ecological risk assessment, strengthening the linkages between environmental and public health agendas and agencies, and the application of emerging computational and molecule sciences in improving risk assessment practices.