Appendix
Committee Biographies
Deborah A. Cory-Slechta, Ph.D. (Chair), is a professor of Environmental Medicine and Pediatrics at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry. She was formerly Dean for Research and Chair of the Department of Environmental Medicine at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry. She has also served as director of the Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute and Chair of the Department of Environmental and Occupational Medicine at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. Her research interests include the relationships between neurotransmitter systems and behavior, and how such relationships are altered by exposure to environmental toxicants, particularly the role of environmental neurotoxicants in developmental disabilities and neurodegenerative diseases. Dr. Cory-Slechta has served on numerous national research review and advisory panels, including those for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). She served on the National Research Council’s (NRC’s) Committee on Human Health Risks of Trichloroethylene and the Committee on Toxicology and on the Institute of Medicine’s (IOM’s) Committee on Gulf War and Health: Literature Review of Pesticides and Solvents and the Committee on the Development of a Consensus Case Definition for Chronic Multisymptom Illness in 1990–1991 Gulf War Veterans. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota.
Robert H. Brown, Jr., M.D., D.Phil., is professor and Chair of Neurology at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center and Medical School. He is also the Director of the Day Neuromuscular Research Laboratory at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Dr. Brown’s laboratory has focused on the identification of gene defects that elucidate the molecular pathogenesis of selected neuromuscular diseases including amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease), muscular dystrophy, adrenoleukodystrophy, hereditary neuropathy and hyperkalemic periodic paralysis. Knowledge of theses disease genes has facilitated the creation of mouse and cell-based models of these disorders. In turn, these resources have allowed study of therapeutic strategies using conventional small molecule approaches and new modalities such as inhibitory RNAi. Dr. Brown is a member of the National Academy of Medicine. He previously served on the IOM Committee on Gulf War and Health:
Health Effects of Serving in the Gulf War, Update 2009. Dr. Brown earned a medical degree from Harvard Medical School and a doctoratal degree in neurophysiology from Oxford University.
Alberto Caban-Martinez, D.O., Ph.D., M.P.H., is an assistant professor of Public Health Sciences in the Division of Environment and Public Health of the Department of Public Health Sciences at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine; Instructor of Orthopedic Surgery at Harvard Medical School and Research Associate at the Harvard School of Public Health. He is the Director of the Musculoskeletal Disorders and Occupational Health Lab and Associate Director of the Miami Occupational Research Group. His primary area of research concerns the prevention of musculoskeletal disorders among U.S. workers, including two studies: the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)-funded Musculoskeletal Study of Construction workers’ Longitudinal Exposures, a cohort of 500 commercial construction workers; and the Home Health Occupations–Musculoskeletal Examinations, a mixed-methods pilot research study in minority home health workers. He is a standing member of the NIOSH National Occupational Research Agenda Construction Sector and Mining Sector Council. He conducted postdoctoral research in the Department of Environmental Health at the Harvard School of Public Health. Dr. Caban-Martinez is board certified in public health. He received his Ph.D. from the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and attended medical school at Nova Southeastern University College of Osteopathic Medicine.
Javier I. Escobar, M.D., M.Sc., is associate dean for global health and professor of psychiatry and family medicine at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey–Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. He has been an active researcher in clinical psychopharmacology, psychiatry, psychiatric epidemiology, psychiatric diagnosis, cross-cultural medicine, mental disorders in primary care, and treatment of somatoform disorders. Dr. Escobar has been the principal investigator of several NIH-funded grants in medically unexplained symptoms, mentoring of young researchers, and mental-health–primary-care collaborations. He has published more than 200 scientific articles in books and journals and has served on a number of advisory committees and task forces, including those for the National Institute of Mental Health, the World Health Organization (WHO), the Food and Drug Administration, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Dr. Escobar recently served on the IOM Committee on Gulf War and Health: Treatment of Chronic Multisymptom Illness. He received his M.D. from Universidad de Antioquia, Medellin, Colombia, and did his specialty training and obtained a master’s degree in psychiatry–medical genetics at the University of Minnesota.
Scott Fishman, M.D., is professor of anesthesiology and chief of pain medicine at the University of California (UC), Davis, Health System. His research is focused on chronic pain, cancer pain management, psychiatric issues of chronic illness and pain, neuropathic pain treatment strategies, and medical informatics. Dr. Fishman has served on the board of directors of the American Pain Society and is past president of the American Academy of Pain Medicine and is a member of the Pain Care Coalition. He is the senior editor of Pain Medicine. He is board certified in psychiatry and pain medicine, and previously certified in internal medicine. He completed his medical degree at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.
Mary A. Fox, Ph.D., is assistant professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management and co-director of the Risk Sciences and Public Policy Institute at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She teaches courses in quantitative risk assessment methods and risk policy and management for the Risk Sciences and Public Policy Institute’s Certificate Program. Dr. Fox’s research
is focused on human health risk assessment as a part of environmental policy making, particularly approaches to cumulative and chemical mixtures risk assessment. Dr. Fox served on the IOM Committee on Long-Term Health Consequences of Exposure to Burn Pits in Iraq and Afghanistan, and served on the NRC Committee on the Health Risks of Phthalates. Dr. Fox began her public health career conducting community health studies around hazardous waste sites as a Research Scientist in the New York State Department of Health. Dr. Fox received her M.P.H. from the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry and Ph.D. from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Herman J. Gibb, Ph.D., is president of Gibb Epidemiology Consulting, LLC, in Arlington, Virginia. Prior to forming Gibb Epidemiology Consulting, he was president of Tetra Tech Sciences where he consulted to a variety of government, private, and international clients. Before joining Tetra Tech in 2004, Dr. Gibb had a career at EPA where he participated in the epidemiologic assessment of a variety of substances and was the primary author of an influential study on the risk of lung cancer among chromium production workers. He was a member of the Carcinogen Assessment Group—the beginning of EPA’s approach to carcinogen risk assessment, and is the recipient of numerous EPA awards, including the Gold Medal for his work on the risk assessment of arsenic. He was an invited participant on all of WHO’s Final Review Boards on Concise International Chemical Assessment Documents and a member of WHO’s Risk Assessment Steering Group. He is an author of WHO’s Principles for the Assessment of Risks to Human Health from Exposure to Chemicals. In 2011, Dr. Gibb was awarded the Practitioner of the Year award by the Society for Risk Analysis. He currently chairs a WHO task force on chemicals in food. Dr. Gibb is a Lieutenant Colonel (ret.) U.S. Army Reserves. Dr. Gibb has a Ph.D. in epidemiology from Johns Hopkins University and an M.P.H. in environmental health from the University of Pittsburgh.
Rogene F. Henderson, Ph.D., is an emeritus senior biochemist and toxicologist in the Experimental Toxicology Program of the Lovelace Respiratory Research Institute. She is also a clinical professor in the College of Pharmacy at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. Her major research interests are in the use of bronchoalveolar lavage fluid analyses to detect and characterize biomarkers of developing lung disease, the toxicokinetics of inhaled vapors and gases, and the use of biological markers of exposure and of effects to link environmental exposure to disease. She has served on a number of scientific advisory boards, including those of the Department of Energy, EPA, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, WHO, and the U.S. Army. She was recently chair of EPA’s Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee. Dr. Henderson is a National Associate of the National Academies. She has served on 28 NRC committees, chairing 8 of them. Dr. Henderson is currently chair of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology, and she served for 8 years on the Research Committee of the Health Effects Institute (HEI). She received her Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Texas.
Clifford Jack, M.D., is professor of radiology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. His lab is engaged in brain imaging research in cognitive aging, Alzheimer’s disease, and related disorders. Dr. Jack’s research team employs a variety of MRI-based brain imaging modalities and positron emission tomography (PET) to study the biology of brain aging and causes of cognitive impairment and develops image-processing algorithms for quantitatively measuring the information obtained from brain imaging. The lab’s clinical imaging research is tightly integrated into the Mayo Clinic Alzheimer’s Disease Patient Registry (Mayo Clinic Study of Aging) and Mayo’s Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, which conducts NIH-funded longitudinal clinical and epidemiological research projects investigating
normal aging, Alzheimer’s disease, and other dementias. Dr. Jack was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2013. He earned his medical degree from Wayne State University School of Medicine.
Howard M. Kipen, M.D., M.P.H., is professor and interim chair of Environmental and Occupational Medicine, acting associate director, Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute, and director, Clinical Research and Occupational Medicine Division at the Rutgers School of Public Health. His research focuses on clinical and epidemiological studies of the health effects of exposure to environmental agents such as ambient air pollution, benzene, asbestos, and airway irritants. He has served as a member or chair of several IOM committees, including the Committee on the Persian Gulf Syndrome Comprehensive Clinical Evaluation Program and the Committee on the Development of a Consensus Case Definition for Chronic Multisymptom Illness. He received his M.D. from UC San Francisco, and his M.P.H. from the Columbia University School of Public Health. He is board certified in internal medicine and occupational medicine.
Kenneth W. Kizer, M.D., M.P.H., is a distinguished professor at the UC Davis School of Medicine and the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing; director of the Institute for Population Health Improvement, UC Davis Health System; director of the California Cancer Reporting and Epidemiologic Surveillance Program; and chief quality consultant for the California Department of Health Care Services. Dr. Kizer’s professional experience includes senior executive positions in the public and private sectors, academe, and philanthropy. His previous positions have included chairman, CEO and president, Medsphere Systems Corporation; founding president and CEO, National Quality Forum; under secretary for health, Department of Veterans Affairs (VA); director, California Department of Health Services; and director, California Emergency Medical Services Authority. He has served on the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force and as chairman, The California Wellness Foundation, as well as on the governing boards of a number of health information technology and managed care companies, several foundations, and various professional associations and nonprofit organizations. Dr. Kizer is an honors graduate of Stanford University and UC Los Angeles and the recipient of two honorary doctorates. He is board certified in 6 medical specialties and/or subspecialties and has authored more than 400 original articles, book chapters, and other reports. He is a fellow or distinguished fellow of 10 professional societies and is a member of the National Academy of Public Administration, in addition to the National Academy of Medicine. He has served on numerous IOM committees.
Joel Kramer, Psy.D., is professor of neuropsychology in neurology and the director of the Memory and Aging Center Neuropsychology Program at UC San Francisco. Dr. Kramer has been extensively involved in studying the cognitive changes associated with brain disorders for the past three decades. He has co-authored widely used neuropsychological measures of memory and executive functioning. Much of his work has been devoted to identifying the different ways in which aging and neurodegenerative diseases affect memory and other abilities and in utilizing these differences to improve differential diagnosis in clinic. Presently, Dr. Kramer’s active areas of research use neuroimaging, neuropsychology, neuroimmunology, and genetics to study the underlying biological mechanisms of cognitive aging, the cognitive effects of cerebrovascular disease and frontotemporal dementia, and the relationships between cognitive functioning, behavioral control, and reward systems. Dr. Kramer is board certified in clinical neuropsychology. He earned his doctorate in psychology at Baylor University and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in neuropsychology at the Martinez Veteranas Affairs hospital.
Francine Laden, Sc.D., is the professor of environmental epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Additionally, she is an associate professor in the Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, and assistant professor in the Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Dr. Laden’s research focuses on environmental risk factors of chronic disease, including cardiovascular disease and cancer, specifically breast cancer, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and lung cancer. Her current research focus is on the adverse effects of chronic exposures to air pollution and on the effects of the built environment and greenspace on health. She has served on two IOM committees on Gulf War and Health: the Committee on Gulf War and Health, Volume 4: A Review of the Medical Literature Relative to the Gulf War Veterans’ Health and the Committee on Gulf War and Health, Volume 8: Health Effects of Serving in the Gulf War, Update 2009; she also served on the IOM Committee on the Review of the Department of Labor’s Site Exposure Matrix (SEM) Database, and the NRC Committee on Contaminated Drinking Water at Camp Lejeune. Dr. Laden received her Sc.D. from the Harvard School of Public Health.
James M. Noble, M.D., is assistant professor of neurology at Columbia University Medical Center with the Taub Institute for Alzheimer’s Disease and the Aging Brain at Columbia University. He received his medical degree from Emory University, trained in neurology residency and dementia fellowship at Columbia University Medical Center, and received a master’s of science in epidemiology at the Mailman School of Public Health of Columbia University through the NIH-supported neuroepidemiology training program. His clinical practice focuses on neurodegenerative forms of dementia including Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders. He leads several research projects, including collegiate sports-related concussion and chronic traumatic encephalopathy, neurological health literacy, and systemic inflammatory markers as potential novel Alzheimer’s risk factors. He is board certified in neurology, behavioral neurology and neuropsychiatry, and public health.
Anbesaw Selassie, Dr.P.H., is associate professor of public health sciences at the Medical University of South Carolina. He is interested in the neuroepidemiology of central nervous system injuries and epilepsy, infectious disease epidemiology, and methodological issues in disease surveillance and outcome research. He completed master’s and doctoral degrees in epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of South Carolina.
Nancy F. Woods, Ph.D., is professor of biobehavioral nursing and health systems at the University of Washington. She previously served as the dean of the University of Washington’s School of Nursing and as the president of the American Academy of Nursing. She co-led a 20-year longitudinal study of women’s experiences during the menopause transition and studied personal, social, endocrine, and aging-related factors influencing women’s symptoms. She is currently involved in a collaborative study on the use and acceptability of electronic apps to help women identify their symptoms and communicate more clearly with their health care providers. She is an investigator for the Women’s Health Initiative Study and has published results related to frailty in older women as well as healthy aging phenotypes, aging well, and well-being. She leads the special interest group on Biology of Aging and Geriatrics for the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, serves as a member of the American Academy of Nursing Expert Panel on Women’s Health, and is president of the Washington State Academy of Science. Previously, Dr. Woods was a member of the 1996 IOM Committee to Review the Health Consequences of Service During the Persian Gulf War. Dr. Woods earned an M.N. from the University of Washington and a Ph.D. in epidemiology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
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