Appendix B
Biographical Information on Symposium Speakers and Session Moderators
Steven A. Adams has served as the deputy director of the U.S. Strategic National Stockpile Program located within Department of Health and Human Service’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from the time of its inception in 1999. As such, he has been intimately involved with the development and evolution of the national doctrine for response to a public health crisis and directly engaged with state and local authorities in the planning and implementation of the civilian medical response to large-scale public health emergencies. His extensive interagency planning and coordination efforts include membership on the U.S. Department of Agriculture National Veterinary Stockpile’s formal advisory committee. In addition to programmatic leadership, Mr. Adams has managed large-scale emergency responses and led rapid field deployment teams.
Mr. Adams has served CDC in a variety of leadership roles for 25 years in contingency response programs as well as public health efforts as varied as HIV field epidemiology and radiological dose reconstruction related to cold war–era nuclear weapons production. He holds a master’s degree in public health from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Leeanna Allen, M.P.H., M.C.H.E.S., is a health communications fellow with the Radiation Studies Branch (RSB) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Since 2008, she has worked on radiological and nuclear terrorism preparedness communication initiatives, research, and products for RSB. During the 2011 Japan Earthquake and Tsunami Response, she served as the subject-matter expert in the CDC Joint Information Center. Ms. Allen received her B.S. from the Georgia Institute of Technology, and her M.P.H. from Emory University. She has previously served as training and exercise coordinator in the hospital preparedness program for the Georgia Division of Public Health, and also as an emergency risk communicator and health educator for the Arizona Department of Health Services.
Armin Ansari is a health physicist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the lead author of the CDC guide for state and local public health planners on population monitoring, and a contributing author to the federal planning guidance for response to a nuclear detonation. He is also an adjunct associate professor of nuclear and radiological engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology, and author of the textbook Radiation Threats and Your Safety: A Guide to Preparation and Response for Professionals and Community. Dr. Ansari earned his B.S. and Ph.D. degrees in radiation biophysics from the University of Kansas, starting his career as a radiation biologist,
and did his postdoctoral research at Oak Ridge and Los Alamos National Laboratories. He is certified in comprehensive practice by the American Board of Health Physics and is the past president of the Health Physics Society.
John S. Applegate, J.D., is executive vice president for university academic affairs of Indiana University and Walter W. Foskett Professor of Law in the Indiana University (IU) Maurer School of Law. He teaches and has written extensively in the fields of environmental law, regulation of chemicals and hazardous wastes, international environmental law, risk assessment, and the management of radioactive waste. From 1993 to 1998, he chaired the Fernald Citizens Advisory Board at the Department of Energy’s Fernald facility in Ohio, and he served on the Department of Energy environmental management advisory board from 1994 to 2001. He has participated in several National Research Council studies as committee member or reviewer. In addition to academic affairs, Professor Applegate is responsible for public safety, emergency management, and environmental safety and health across IU’s campuses. A member of the American Law Institute, Professor Applegate has taught at the University of Paris 2 (Panthéon-Assas) and University of Erlangen-Nürnberg and been a research fellow at Cardiff University. Before moving to Indiana, he was the James B. Helmer, Jr., Professor of Law at the University of Cincinnati College of Law, and was a visiting professor at Vanderbilt University Law School. He was a judicial law clerk for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and an attorney in private practice in Washington, D.C. Professor Applegate received his B.A. in English from Haverford College in 1978 and his J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1981.
Steven M. Becker, Ph.D., is professor of community and environmental health at Old Dominion University. He is an internationally recognized expert on community impacts, reactions, and responses to radiation emergencies. Dr. Becker has had extensive field experience at the sites of radiation incidents around the world, including the 1999 nuclear criticality accident in Tokaimura, Japan. He has done Chernobyl disaster follow-up work in Ukraine and Belarus, and was a member of a three-person radiological emergency assistance team invited to Japan in 2011 in response to the earthquake-tsunami disaster and the Fukushima Daiichi accident. Dr. Becker serves on the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements (NCRP), and on the recently formed National Academy of Sciences/National Research Council scientific panel examining cancer risks in populations living near nuclear facilities. In September 2012, Dr. Becker was appointed by President Barack Obama to the U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board.
Julie A. Bentz is the director, strategic capabilities policy on the national security staff within the Executive Office of the President. She is responsible for writing presidential policy, coordinating interagency dialogue, informing presidential budgetary decisions, and building consensus on interagency initiatives in programs that develop U.S. strategic capabilities to meet 21st-century requirements.
Gerilee W. Bennett is the deputy director of FEMA’s National Disaster Recovery Planning Division. Ms. Bennett’s team is responsible for leading implementation of the National Disaster Recovery Framework, published in September 2011. She has been responsible for leading national disaster recovery planning and exercise initiatives since 2003. Ms. Bennett has supported an array of disaster assistance operations at headquarters and field offices, including Hurricanes Isaac and Sandy in 2012, the 2010 Gulf Coast oil spill, the 2004 and 2005 hurricanes, the 2001 World Trade Center attacks, Hurricanes Opal and Fran in the 1990s, and the 1993 and 2008 Midwest floods. Ms. Bennett has a bachelor of arts degree in political science and German language and literature from the University of Idaho. She is currently completing a master of arts degree in security studies at the Naval Postgraduate School Center for Homeland Defense and Security.
William F. Blakely received his Ph.D. in 1980 at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign in radiation biology; his doctoral advisor was Dr. Howard S. Ducoff. He completed his postdoctoral study on DNA radiation chemistry in Dr. John F. Ward’s laboratory at the University of California, San Diego. In 1983, he joined the Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute (AFRRI)–Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, his present affiliation.
Dr. Blakely’s research activities have focused on molecular mechanisms of radiation sensitivity, cell-cycle effects, DNA damage and repair, and biological dosimetry. He served as a guest editor for several issues of journals
associated with international meetings, an associate editor for the Radiation Research journal, and chairman of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Research Study Group–Radiation Bioeffects and Countermeasures (RTG-033). He presently is the director of the radiation biology graduate course at his university. He also serves as a U.S. representative on the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) Technical Committee (TC)85/SC2 (Radiation Protection) Working Group 18 (Performance Criteria for Service Laboratories Performing Biological Dosimetry by Cytogenetics), council member for the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements (NCRP), assistant professor in the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences Preventive Medicine and Biometrics Department, and as senior associate faculty at the Radiation Emergency Assistance Center/Training Site (REAC/TS).
Daniel J. Blumenthal manages the Consequence Management programs in the Office of Emergency Response at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) within the Department of Energy (DOE). In 2009, he transferred from the Department of Homeland Security’s Domestic Nuclear Detection Office where he was the chief test scientist. Prior to joining the federal government, he was a senior scientist at DOE’s Remote Sensing Laboratory from 1996 to 2006, where he managed or provided scientific support to several DOE emergency response teams. Most recently, Dr. Blumenthal led the initial DOE response team to Japan where he spent a total of 7 weeks following the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident in March 2011. Dr. Blumenthal’s background is in nuclear physics and he is also a certified health physicist.
Alina V. Brenner received her M.D. and Ph.D. (in immunology) degrees in 1995 from the Russian State Medical University, Moscow. She completed an M.P.H. program in epidemiology at the George Washington University and joined the Radiation Epidemiology Branch, NCI, as a postdoctoral fellow in 1999. In 2004, she became a staff scientist. Dr. Brenner has a long-standing involvement in studies of health consequences from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident and more recently in studies of atomic bomb survivors. Her scientific interests include epidemiology of thyroid and brain cancers with a special focus on radiation exposure. More generally, she is interested in how radiation risk depends on age, genetics, immunologic, and other factors. Dr. Brenner has served on the Public Health Committee of the American Thyroid Association (2012-2014) and International Atomic Energy Agency Working Group on Radiological Consequences of Fukushima nuclear power plant accidents (2014). In 2013, as part of the Chernobyl studies team, she received an NIH Merit Award.
S.Y. Chen is currently director of the Professional Health Physics Program at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), Chicago. Prior to joining IIT, he was senior environmental systems engineer and manager at Argonne National Laboratory. Dr. Chen is a member of the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements (NCRP); he also serves on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Science Advisory Board/Radiation Advisory Committee. Dr. Chen chairs the NCRP Program Area Committee on Environmental Radiation and Radioactive Waste Issues. He also chairs NCRP Scientific Committee SC5-1, which work is to be published as NCRP Report 175, Decision Making for Late-Phase Recovery from Nuclear or Radiological Incidents.
Sara D. DeCair has been a health physicist with the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Radiation and Indoor Air since 2003. She works on policy, planning, training, and outreach for EPA’s radiological emergency preparedness and response program. Ms. DeCair is the project and technical lead for revising the Protective Action Guides and is especially interested in emergency worker dose limits and turnback levels.
William “Bill” E. Irwin leads a group of scientists who provide guidance on the health consequences of chronic and acute exposures to ionizing and non-ionizing radiation, toxic chemicals, and other physical phenomena. He and his team place great emphasis on emergency preparedness. The team works closely with state and federal agencies for health, public safety, emergency management, homeland security, environmental protection, and agriculture on radiological emergency preparedness. Dr. Irwin and his team exercise and train regularly and collaborate with numerous national working groups to improve their readiness. He has a master of science in radiological physics, a doctor of science in work environment engineering, and is a certified health physicist. Before coming to Vermont,
Dr. Irwin worked as a technician in the U.S. Navy reactor program, as a trainer at numerous commercial nuclear facilities, and as a health physicist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard.
Brad Leissa received his medical degree from The Ohio State University. He received postgraduate training in internal medicine and pediatrics at the Ohio State University Hospitals. He went on to receive subspecialty training in pediatric infectious diseases from George Washington University and the Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C. He began his career at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) back in 1989 as a medical officer with a focus on anti-infective drug development in the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER). During the October 2001 anthrax attacks, Dr. Leissa was assigned as the FDA liaison to the Secretary’s Bioterrorism Command Center at the Department of Health and Human Services. Since then, he has continued to work on medical countermeasure development at FDA. He currently holds the position of deputy director in CDER’s Office of Counter-Terrorism and Emergency Coordination (OCTEC).
Martha S. Linet has served as chief of the Radiation Epidemiology Branch of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) since 2002. She has been a senior investigator at NCI since 1987, and was previously an associate professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. Dr. Linet is principal investigator of studies assessing the role of protracted low-dose radiation exposure and cancer risks in medical radiation workers, including radiologic technologists and physicians performing fluoroscopically guided interventional procedures. She has also studied the role of magnetic field exposures from power lines and electrical appliances in relation to childhood leukemia; cellular telephone use and risk of adult brain tumors; and ultraviolet solar radiation exposure and risk of skin and other cancers. Dr. Linet has a long-standing interest in assessment of a broad range of postulated risk factors for childhood and adult hematopoietic malignancies, including occupational benzene and other occupational and environmental exposures, medical conditions, medications, measures of early-life infections, and potential protective factors such as breastfeeding, vitamin D, and preconceptional folic acid supplements. She served on the board of directors (1999-2004) and as president of the American College of Epidemiology (2004-2005) and is currently a member of the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements and the National Academy of Sciences Nuclear and Radiation Studies Board. Dr. Linet has also served on other advisory groups to the International Agency for Research on Cancer and the Leukemia and Lymphoma Research Society, and on editorial boards (American Journal of Epidemiology and Journal of the National Cancer Institute) Among her honors are election to the American Epidemiological Society, the NIH Director’s and Merit Awards, the NCI Mentor of Merit Award, the Henry L. Moses Award for outstanding clinical paper, the American College of Epidemiology Distinguished Service Award, and election to the Johns Hopkins Society of Scholars.
Nicole Lurie is the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The ASPR serves as the Secretary’s principal advisor on matters related to bioterrorism and other public health emergencies. The mission of her office is to lead the nation in preventing, responding to, and recovering from the adverse health effects of public health emergencies and disasters. Previously, Dr. Lurie was senior natural scientist and the Paul O’Neill Alcoa Professor of Health Policy at the RAND Corporation. Dr. Lurie attended college and medical school at the University of Pennsylvania and completed her residency and M.S.P.H. at University of California, Los Angeles, where she was also a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholar. Dr. Lurie continues to practice clinical medicine in the health care safety net in Washington, D.C.
James McIntyre serves as the director of Disaster Operations, Cadre Management and Training. As the Director, he serves as the senior external affairs official on incident response, and reports directly to the director of external affairs (ESF 15 Operations Director, when activated). He coordinates the External Affairs Emergency Support Function 15 activation activities to include the appointment and deployment of ESF 15 lead, deputy lead, and EA situational awareness teams. Mr. McIntyre also provides incident actions plans and deployment support through national and regional cadres and coordinates EA messaging and support with all EA functions as well as federal and nongovernmental partners. He oversees the recruiting, hiring, administrative support, and training qualification of the FEMA External Affairs Incident Management Workforce. Mr. McIntyre has a bachelor of arts degree in
organizational management and is a former U.S. Air Force public affairs officer who retired in 1996 after 24 years of military service.
Patricia A. Milligan is a certified health physicist as well as a nuclear pharmacist. She works for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in their headquarters office in the Rockville, Maryland office. She is a senior advisor in the Office of Nuclear Security and Incident Response Division of Preparedness and Response. Ms. Milligan has worked for the NRC since 1998. Prior to joining the NRC, she worked for 13 years in the nuclear power field as a health physicist and for 5 years as a nuclear pharmacist.
Miles O’Brien is a veteran, independent journalist who focuses on science, technology, and aerospace. He is the science correspondent for the PBS NewsHour, a producer and director for the PBS science documentary series NOVA, and a correspondent for the PBS documentary series FRONTLINE and the National Science Foundation Science Nation series. For nearly 17 of his 32 years in the news business, he worked for CNN as the science, environment, and aerospace space correspondent and the anchor of various programs, including American Morning. While at CNN, he secured a deal with NASA to become the first journalist to fly on the Space Shuttle. The project ended with the loss of Columbia and her crew in 2003–a story he told to the world in a critically acclaimed 16-hour marathon of live coverage. Prior to joining CNN, he worked as a reporter at television stations in Boston, Tampa, Albany, New York, and St. Joseph, Missouri. He began his television career as a desk assistant at WRC-TV in Washington, D.C. Mr. O’Brien is an accomplished pilot and is frequently called upon to explain the world of aviation to a mass audience. He has won numerous awards over the years, including a half-dozen Emmys, a Peabody, and a DuPont for his coverage of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath.
In February 2014, a heavy equipment case fell on his forearm while he was on assignment. He developed Acute Compartment Syndrome, which necessitated the emergency amputation of his left arm above the elbow. Born in Detroit and raised in Grosse Pointe Farms, Michigan, he is based in Washington, D.C. He has a son at the U.S. Naval Academy and a daughter at Davidson College in North Carolina. He was a history major at Georgetown University.
Jerome S. Puskin has been director of the Center for Science and Technology within the Office of Radiation and Indoor Air of the Environmental Protection Agency since 1985. Prior to his work at the Center for Science and Technology, he was a biophysicist at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. He is Distinguished Emeritus Member of the National Council of Radiation Protection and Measurements (NCRP) and member of the Committee to Assess the Risks from Low Energy Photons and Electrons. He received a B.A. from Johns Hopkins University and a Ph.D. from Harvard University.
Adela Salame-Alfie is the acting director of the Division of Environmental Health Investigations of the New York State Department of Health. Prior to this appointment, she was the director of the Bureau of Environmental Radiation Protection. Since joining the Bureau in 1993, Dr. Salame-Alfie has been actively involved in radiological emergency response, evaluation of remedial actions for contaminated sites, radon, and the radioactive materials and x-ray regulatory programs. She is the chair of the Conference of Radiation Control Program Directors’ Homeland Security Emergency Response Task Force charged with the development of the radiological dispersal device first responder’s pocket guide and the handbook for responding to radiological dispersal devices companion. Dr. Salame-Alfie is a member of the NCRP SC4-2 Committee charged with the development of a publication on population monitoring and decontamination following a nuclear or radiological incident and a workgroup charged with the development of a competency standard for first responders. Dr. Salame-Alfie received her B.S. in energy engineering in Mexico City and her M.S. and Ph.D. in nuclear engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York.
Steven L. Simon, Ph.D., joined National Cancer Institute’s (NCI) Radiation Epidemiology Branch in 2000 as an expert in dose reconstruction and presently heads the dosimetry unit in that group. Previously he was on the research faculty at the University of Utah, the academic faculty at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, was a medical physicist for the University of New Mexico at Los Alamos National Laboratory, a senior staff officer
at the National Research Council, and director of the Marshall Islands Nationwide Radiological Study. Dr. Simon has worldwide experience in monitoring nuclear test sites for residual radioactivity and assessing historical radiation doses from nuclear weapons fallout. He has provided advice over many years to national and international organizations on issues related to environmental contamination from nuclear testing and related radiation exposures. More recently, he has directed his efforts to estimating historical doses to patients and medical staff from medical diagnostic procedures. Dr. Simon has been a member of the NCRP for 10 years and is presently the NCRP vice president for radiation measurement and dosimetry. He has been an associate editor of Health Physics for 21 continuous years. In 2011, during the Fukushima crisis, he was part of the five-person team deployed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to the U.S. Embassy in Japan to assist with the protection of American citizens. He received a B.S. in physics from the University of Texas, an M.S. in radiological physics from the University of Texas Health Sciences Center in Dallas, and a Ph.D. in radiological health sciences from Colorado State University.
Jama VanHorne-Sealy is an assistant professor of preventive medicine and biometrics and director of radiation safety for the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. Concurrently, she is the primary advisor on nuclear and radiation issues for the Office of Health Affairs and the Chief Medical Officer of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). She began serving in this position in May 2013. Major VanHorne-Sealy has served as the lead for the Department of Defense’s Medical Radiobiology Advisor Team and Instructor for the Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute’s Medical Effects of Ionization course. During the Fukushima reactor release in Japan, she established an in-country presumptive radiation detection laboratory for the Pacific U.S. Forces and served as a technical advisor to U.S. Forces Japan and U.S. Embassy staff. Major VanHorne-Sealy developed and implemented the first Radiation Safety Program for U.S. Forces in Afghanistan.
Lee Ann B. Veal joined EPA’s Radiation Protection Division in 2010 as the director of the Center for Radiological Emergency Management. Her role during the Fukushima incident was to manage EPA’s Emergency Operations Center. EPA’s primary function was to collect and analyze environmental samples taken from locations across the United States and its territories and publicly report on all findings. EPA was significantly involved in the scientific team supporting the U.S. response in Japan and to concerns for American citizens living there. Prior to her current responsibilities, Ms. Veal held positions with the Department of Homeland Security, Los Alamos National Laboratory, EPA’s Office of Homeland Security, and EPA’s air pollution monitoring program. Ms. Veal began her career as an electrical engineer working for Dominion Energy.
Albert Lee Wiley, Jr., B.N.E., M.D., Ph.D., F.A.C.R., is the medical and technical director of radiation emergency medicine programs at REAC/TS, a DOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) asset managed by Oak Ridge Associated Universities. He is also head of the World Health Organization Radiation Emergency Medical Preparedness and Assistance Network Collaborating Center and of the Radiation Emergency Assistance Center/Training Site (REAC/TS)—International Atomic Energy Agency Response and Assistance Network (IAEA RANET) medical radiation emergency response team at Oak Ridge. He began his work as a nuclear engineer (B.N.E. from North Carolina State University) and later received an M.D. degree (University of Rochester Medical School). He also holds a Ph.D. in radiological sciences (minor in nuclear engineering) from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he also spent most of his career as professor of radiation oncology and is now an emeritus professor. He also has served as professor and interim director of the East Carolina University Cancer Center. He was medical director of U.S. Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory and at REAC/TS has been medical team leader for NNSA-sponsored courses in over 20 countries and has been deployed as a medical consultant to radiological accident sites in Venezuela, Trinidad, and Chernobyl. He has also worked with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration on the Pluto and Mars Science Lab radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG) launches and is in the U.S. Navy Reserves (retired).
Jan Wolff was born in 1925 and schooled in Germany, Holland, and California. Dr. Wolff worked on iodine metabolism at University of California, Berkeley (Ph.D., 1949). This was followed by an M.D. degree (Harvard,
1953) and internship at Massachusetts General Hospital and transfer to the new Clinical Endocrinology Branch at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) where he resumed studies on iodine metabolism, including two trips to the Marshall Islands and one to Kiev for the Chernobyl accident and consultations regarding KI prophylaxis with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, National Center for Radiation Protection, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. He later switched to studies on adenosine receptors, toxic adenylyl cyclase in pertussis, and the protein tubulin. Dr. Wolff retired in 2006.
