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Committee Biographies
Elaine L. Larson, R.N., Ph.D., FAAN, CIC (Chair), is associate dean for research and professor of pharmaceutical and therapeutic research, Columbia University School of Nursing, and professor of epidemiology, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. She is a former dean of Georgetown University School of Nursing. Dr. Larson has been a member of the Board of Directors, National Foundation for Infectious Diseases, and the Report Review Committee, National Academy of Sciences. She is the director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Research to Prevent Antimicrobial Resistance at Columbia University and has been editor of the American Journal of Infection Control since 1994. She has published more than 200 journal articles, 4 books, and a number of book chapters in the areas of infection prevention, epidemiology, and clinical research.
Gloria Addo-Ayensu, M.D., M.P.H., is the director of health for Fairfax County, VA. In this capacity she provides overall direction for public health programs in the county, including emergency preparedness. She has led Fairfax County’s comprehensive pandemic influenza preparedness efforts and engaged a wide range of community stakeholders in the process. As past chair of the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments Health Officials Committee, she facilitated initial coordination of the National Capital Region’s pandemic planning in 2006. Dr. AddoAyensu is interested in international health and has served as a consultant to research and public health programs in Ghana.
Allison E. Aiello, Ph.D., is the John G. Searle Assistant Professor of Public Health at the University of Michigan School of Public Health in the
Department of Epidemiology. Dr. Aiello held a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health and Society Scholars Fellowship at the University of Michigan and an Emerging Infectious Diseases Fellowship at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Dr. Aiello’s research focuses on the use of non-pharmaceutical interventions, including masks and hand hygiene interventions, for mitigating influenza transmission. She also investigates socioeconomic and race/ethnic disparities in infectious diseases, the relationship between infection and chronic diseases, and the emergence of antimicrobial resistance in the community setting. Her work on these topics has been presented at numerous national and international conferences and published in peer-reviewed journals, including Lancet Infectious Diseases, Emerging Infectious Diseases, American Journal of Public Health, Journal of Infectious Diseases, Clinical Infectious Diseases, and the American Journal of Epidemiology. Dr. Aiello is on the editorial board of the American Journal of Infection Control, associate editor of BMC Public Health, and an invited member of the American College of Epidemiology Minority Affairs Committee. She received her Ph.D. in epidemiology from Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, where she held a National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases training fellowship and was the recipient of the Ana C. Gelman Award for outstanding achievement and promise in the field of epidemiology.
Howard J. Cohen, Ph.D., M.P.H., CIH, is professor emeritus (formerly professor and chair of the Occupational Safety and Health Department) at the University of New Haven. He is an associate (adjunct) professor at Yale University’s Department of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. He formerly was the manager of industrial hygiene at the Olin Corporation and editor in chief of the American Industrial Hygiene Association Journal. He is certified in the comprehensive practice of industrial hygiene by the American Board of Industrial Hygiene. Dr. Cohen is the former chair of the American National Standards Institute Z88.2 committee on respiratory protection and a current member of the editorial board of the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene. He is the past chair of the American Industrial Hygiene Association’s (AIHA’s) respiratory protection committee, a past president of the Connecticut River Valley Chapter of the AIHA, and a past officer and treasurer of the American Board of Industrial Hygiene. Dr. Cohen served on the Institute of Medicine (IOM) Committee on Personal Protective Equipment for Healthcare Workers During an Influenza Pandemic and on the IOM
Standing Committee on Personal Protective Equipment for Workplace Safety and Health. He is currently working as a consultant to the Veterans Administration’s North Florida/South Georgia Center for Occupational Safety and Infectious Disease (on the Advisory Board and assisting on an upcoming clinical study of influenza). Dr. Cohen is also a consultant to a pharmaceutical company that has developed the first antiviral N95 surgical respirator to be certified by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). He is a graduate of Boston University, where he received a B.A. in biology. Dr. Cohen received his M.P.H. and Ph.D. in industrial health from the University of Michigan.
Robert Cohen, M.D., FCCP, is chair of the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine for the Cook County Health and Hospitals System and chair of pulmonary and critical care medicine at the John H. Stroger, Jr., Hospital of Cook County, IL. His early research focused on the resurgent epidemic of tuberculosis in the City of Chicago and at Cook County Hospital. Dr. Cohen has worked closely with patients suffering from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and he founded Cook County Hospital’s pulmonary rehabilitation program. He has worked as the medical director of the Black Lung Clinics at Cook County Hospital and as medical director of the federally funded Black Lung Clinics Program, a program dedicated to the care of coal miners throughout the United States. He has worked closely with the American Lung Association of Metropolitan Chicago and is a member of the American Lung Association’s COPD task force, currently serving as the medical director of the Community Spirometry Initiative. He is a recipient of its Public Health Service Award in 2006 and Outstanding Clinician Award in 2007. Dr. Cohen’s work on respiratory disease in coal mining populations has involved consulting in areas of mining-related health issues for federal agencies, including the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), CDC, and NIOSH. He has recently served as a member of the Mine Safety Research Advisory Committee. In addition, he has provided expert consultation on occupational lung disease to clinics supported by USAID in Donetsk, Ukraine. Dr. Cohen graduated from Northwestern University’s Honors Program in Medical Education in 1981. He did his internship and residency at Cook County Hospital, as well as subspecialty training in pulmonary medicine and critical care.
Karen Coyne, Ph.D., is research general engineer at the U.S. Army Edgewood Chemical Biological Center (ECBC). Dr. Coyne has 8 years of experience in respiratory protection research and testing at the U.S. Army ECBC. Her specific areas of expertise are in testing and modeling the physiological impact of wearing respiratory protection and in developing novel test systems. Prior to this, she spent 7 years at the University of Maryland–College Park (UMCP), conducting respiratory protection research and developing data collection and instrumentation systems for assessing the impact of protective equipment on respiration, vision, communications, and work performance. Dr. Coyne has authored or coauthored 20 journal publications, 8 technical reports, and 18 platform (2 international) and 6 poster conference presentations, has given 5 university guest lectures, and is coinventor on a patent. She taught a physiological modeling course at UMCP for 3 years. She served as a member of the Project B.R.E.A.T.H.E. working group. Dr. Coyne won the John White Best Paper Award in respiratory protection from the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene for 2000 and 2006 and the Michigan Industrial Hygiene Society Best Paper award in 1998. She received her Ph.D. in biological resources engineering from UMCP.
David M. DeJoy, Ph.D., is professor of health promotion and behavior and director of the Workplace Health Group in the College of Public Health at the University of Georgia. Dr. DeJoy has 30 years of experience in workplace safety and health as a researcher, instructor, and consultant. His areas of research include safety climate/culture, work organization, safe work practices, risk communication, and theory-based intervention design/intervention effectiveness. He has published approximately 120 scientific articles and book chapters and presented more than 200 papers at scientific and professional meetings. He currently serves on the editorial boards of Safety Science, Journal of Safety Research, and Journal of Occupational Health Psychology. Extramural funding for his research has come from CDC, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and NIOSH. Dr. DeJoy has served on numerous expert panels, review committees, and advisory panels at the national and international levels.
Ken Gall, Ph.D., is a professor in the School of Materials Science and Engineering and Mechanical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Before joining Georgia Tech in 2005, he was an associate professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Colorado at Boulder and a post-doc at Sandia National Laboratories. Dr. Gall’s re-
search combines polymer chemistry, materials science, bioengineering, and mechanical engineering in order to synthesize and characterize new materials for use in emerging technologies. His specific interests include metallic and polymer biomaterials, mechanically active materials, and nanometer scale materials and characterization. He has published more than 130 journal articles, which have been cited more than 2,200 times, and he has given approximately 200 professional talks. He has provided extensive consulting on materials and engineering for law firms, industry, national labs, and the U.S. military. His research on shape memory alloys and polymers was the basis for founding MedShape Solutions, a company developing shape memory material-based orthopedic devices. He received his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the University of Illinois.
William H. Kojola, M.S., is the industrial hygienist for the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations’ (AFL– CIO’s) Department of Occupational Health and Safety. His experience in health and safety spans more than 30 years. During that time, Mr. Kojola has been the director of the Occupational Safety and Health Division of the Laborers Health and Safety Fund of North America, an occupational safety and health specialist for the International Brotherhood of Boiler-makers, and director of safety and health for the United Cement, Lime, Gypsum and Allied Workers International Union. Prior to this, he was a health research scientist at the University of Illinois School of Public Health, studying the human health effects of air and water pollutants. With the AFL–CIO, Mr. Kojola is responsible for developing strategies for securing new safety and health protections through federal and state regulations, coordinating with affiliates on and leading a unified labor response to proposed Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) regulations, and representing the AFL–CIO before government regulatory agencies, on federal advisory committees, and in consensus standard-setting efforts. He also works with affiliate unions to address emerging workplace hazards and issues. Mr. Kojola holds a B.S. in biology and an M.S. in genetics from the University of Minnesota, and studied toxicology and industrial hygiene at the University of Illinois School of Public Health.
Allison McGeer, M.D., is a professor in the Departments of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology and at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto. In addition to her positions as mi-
crobiologist and director of infection control at Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto, Dr. McGeer is an infection control consultant to the Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care. She currently serves on Canada’s National Advisory Committee on Immunization and on the infection control subcommittee of the Ontario Provincial Infectious Diseases Advisory Committee. She is a member of several local, provincial, and national pandemic influenza committees. She is an expert reviewer for many research funding agencies, including the Canadian Institute of Health Research and U.S. NIH, and has served on the editorial boards of several journals, including the Canadian Medical Association Journal and Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology. She returned to Mount Sinai Hospital in 1989 as a microbiologist and director of infection control. Her major research interests are in the prevention of infection in hospitals and nursing homes, and the use of surveillance to advance the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of infectious diseases. She is the principal investigator of the Toronto Invasive Bacterial Diseases Network and the Ontario Group A Streptococcal Study, two collaborative surveillance networks studying the epidemiology of severe community-acquired infections. Dr. McGeer served on the Council of Canadian Academies expert panel on influenza transmission and the role of personal protective equipment, and on the IOM Committee on the Development of Reusable Facemasks for Use During an Influenza Pandemic. Dr. McGeer completed an undergraduate and master’s degree in biochemistry and her M.D. at the University of Toronto. She specialized in internal medicine and infectious diseases, followed by a fellowship in hospital epidemiology at Yale New Haven Hospital.
Peter Palese, Ph.D., is a professor of microbiology and chair of the Department of Microbiology at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. His scientific publications include research on the replication of ribonucleic acid (RNA)–containing viruses, with a special emphasis on influenza viruses, which are negative-strand RNA viruses. Specifically, he established the first genetic maps for influenza A, B, and C viruses; identified the function of several viral genes; and defined the mechanism of neuraminidase inhibitors (which are now FDA-approved antivirals). Dr. Palese also pioneered the field of reverse genetics for negative-strand RNA viruses, which allows the introduction of site-specific mutations into the genomes of these viruses. This technique is crucial for the study of the structure/function relationships of viral genes, for investigation of viral pathogenicity, and for development and manufacture of influenza
virus vaccines. In addition, an improvement of the technique has been used effectively to reconstruct and study the pathogenicity of the highly virulent but extinct 1918 pandemic influenza virus. His recent work in collaboration with Dr. Adolfo Garcia-Sastre has revealed that most negative-strand RNA viruses possess proteins with interferon antagonist activity, enabling them to counteract the antiviral response of the infected host. Dr. Palese was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2000 for his seminal studies on influenza viruses. He serves on the editorial board for the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and as an editor for the Journal of Virology. Dr. Palese was president of the Harvey Society in 2004 and is a past president of the American Society for Virology.
David Prezant, M.D., is the chief medical officer and special advisor to the fire commissioner for health policy, fire department of the City of New York (FDNY). He is also a professor of medicine in the Pulmonary Division at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Dr. Prezant is board certified in internal medicine, pulmonary medicine, and critical care medicine. He is a member of the John P. Redmond International Association of Fire Fighters Medical Advisory Board and represents FDNY as a member of the technical committee for the Fire Service Joint Labor Management Wellness/Fitness Initiative. Dr. Prezant is the author of numerous peer-reviewed articles on the health and safety of firefighters, thermal protective equipment to reduce burn injuries and improve exercise performance for firefighters, and recently the effect of World Trade Center exposures on respiratory health of firefighters and emergency medical services personnel. Dr. Prezant serves on the IOM Standing Committee on Personal Protective Equipment for Workplace Safety and Health. He was a member of the IOM Committee on Personal Protective Equipment for Healthcare Workers During an Influenza Pandemic and the IOM Committee to Review the NIOSH Personal Protective Technology Program. He received his B.S. from Columbia College and his M.D. from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.
M. E. Bonnie Rogers, Dr.P.H., M.P.H., COHN-S, LNNC, FAAN, is an associate professor of nursing and public health and director of the North Carolina Occupational Safety and Health Education and Research Center and the Occupational Health Nursing Program at the University of North Carolina, School of Public Health, Chapel Hill. Dr. Rogers was a visiting scholar at the Hasting Center in New York and is an ethics
consultant. She is certified in occupational health nursing and as a legal nurse consultant. Dr. Rogers is a fellow in the American Academy of Nursing and the American Association of Occupational Health Nurses. Dr. Rogers serves as chair of the NIOSH National Occupational Research Agenda Liaison Committee. She has served on numerous IOM committees, including the Committee on Personal Protective Equipment for Healthcare Workers During an Influenza Pandemic and on the IOM Standing Committee on Personal Protective Equipment for Workplace Safety and Health. Dr. Rogers chaired the recent fast-track IOM study, Respiratory Protection for Healthcare Workers in the Workplace Against Novel H1N1 Influenza A. She has served in leadership positions for occupational health professional societies and is past president of the American Association of Occupational Health Nurses and the Association of Occupational and Environmental Clinics. Dr. Rogers is currently vice president of the International Commission on Occupational Health. She received her diploma in nursing from the Washington Hospital Center School of Nursing, Washington, DC; her baccalaureate in nursing from George Mason University, School of Nursing, Fairfax, VA; and her M.P.H. and Dr.P.H. from the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health.
Richard P. Wenzel, M.D., M.Sc., is professor and former chair of the Department of Internal Medicine at the Medical College of Virginia (MCV), Virginia Commonwealth University (1995–2009). From 2003 to 2008, he was president of MCV Physicians, the clinical practice plan for more than 600 physicians, and senior associate dean for clinical affairs. Dr. Wenzel’s research has focused on the prevention and control of hospital-acquired infections, especially bloodstream infections and sepsis. He is a nationally recognized expert on antibiotic resistance and its impact. He has served on the editorial board of New England Journal of Medicine and, in 2001, became the journal’s first editor at large, a position he still holds. Dr. Wenzel has authored more than 500 publications and is editor of 6 textbooks, including A Guide for Infection Control in the Hospital, which has been translated into 8 languages for free distribution to healthcare workers in developing countries. His popular book, Stalking Microbes, was published in summer 2005. A medical thriller, Labyrinth of Terror, was released in 2010. Dr. Wenzel is a member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation and the Association of American Physicians and a charter member of the Surgical Infections Society. He is also former president of the Society of Healthcare Epidemiology of America.
From 2006 to 2008, Dr. Wenzel was president of the International Society for Infectious Diseases. He has received numerous awards for research and teaching, including the Humboldt Research Award for Senior U.S. Scientists, a Senior International Fellowship Fogarty Award from the National Institutes of Health, and the Bruce Award from the American College of Physicians–American Society of Internal Medicine.
