2007 CONFERENCE ADVISORY COMMITTEE
Laura Abulafia is the Director of Environmental Health Initiative at the American Association on Mental Retardation (AAMR). She attended Johns Hopkins University, Bloomberg School of Public Health, and received her Masters of Health Sciences (MHS), in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences (EHS). Her health and environmental interests are currently educating on neurotoxicants in the environment and linking them with learning and developmental disabilities.
A. Karim Ahmed, Ph.D., is President of the Global Children’s Health and Environment Fund and a Board Member of the National Council for Science and the Environment (NCSE), serving as Secreatary-Treasurer. Dr. Ahmed plays an active role in NCSE’s conference management team. Previously, Dr. Ahmed was Senior Fellow and Deputy Director of the Program on Health, Environment, and Development at the World Resources Institute (WRI) in Washington, DC. From 1974- 1988, he served as Research Director and Senior Scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) in New York City.
Gail Bingham is President of RESOLVE, Inc. and has been a practicing mediator for over 28 years, specializing in environment, natural resources, and other public policy issues, with a particular emphasis on water resource issues. Ms. Bingham will moderate a symposium on Hurricane Katrina: Unnatural Causes and Consequences of “Natural” Catastrophes. Ms. Bingham has written extensively about environmental dispute resolution, and conducts negotiation skills training programs. She has served as a mediator for a variety of local, state and federal agencies and private parties on such diverse subjects as: allocation of water rights, endangered species, drinking water regulations, groundwater protection, wetlands, solid waste source reduction, hazardous waste management, oil spill contingency plans, pesticides policy, and local community land use and infrastructure issues. She also is the author of several publications, including: Resolving Environmental Disputes: A Decade of Experience, and Seeking Solutions: Alternative Dispute Resolution and Western Water Issues. She served two, three-year terms on the Board of Directors of the International Society of Professionals in Dispute Resolution.
David Blockstein, Ph.D., NCSE’s Senior Scientist, is serving as Conference Chair of the 7th National Conference on Science, Policy and the Environment: Integrating Environment and Human Health. Dr. Blockstein has been responsible for organizing four of NCSE’s National Conferences on Science, Policy and the Environment. He is also responsible for directing NCSE’s “strengthening education initiative” and serves as Executive Secretary of NCSE’s Council of Environmental Deans and Directors (CEDD), which currently has a membership of 140 universities and colleges. Dr. Blockstein served as a 1987-88 Congressional Science Fellow working with the House of Representatives Environment Subcommittee of the Science Committee. Dr. Blockstein has worked on a wide range of policy issues including increasing the representation of minorities in science, mechanisms to improve the linkage between science and decisionmaking on environmental issues and electronic processes to communicate scientific information on the environment. He has delivered more than 50 public lectures and more than 20 scientific papers.
Rashid Chotani is the Director of the Global Infectious Disease Surveillance & Alert System (GIDSAS) Program for Humanitarian Assistance. His research and professional activities are directed towards the use of epidemiological and non-epidemiological methods for surveillance and prevention of infectious diseases in developing countries and disaster situations. He has worked on surveillance systems for infectious agents that have the potential to be used in biological warfare. His broad interests are epidemiology and control of infectious disease transmission and outbreak investigations with a special interest in nosocomial infections.
Bill Dennison is a Professor of Marine Science and Vice President for Science Applications at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (UMCES). Dr. Dennison’s primary mission within UMCES is to coordinate the Integration and Application Network. The University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science is one of two research and service institutions in the 13-institution University System of Maryland. UMCES is comprised of three laboratories distributed across the watershed of Chesapeake Bay within Maryland: Appalachian Laboratory in Frostburg, Chesapeake Biological Laboratory on the western shore of Chesapeake Bay in Solomons and Horn Point Laboratory on the eastern shore of Chesapeake Bay near Cambridge as well as Maryland Sea Grant College in College Park, Maryland. UMCES also operates an Annapolis Liaison Office. Bill Dennison rejoined UMCES in 2002 following a ten year stint at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. He originally started at UMCES (then the Center for Environmental and Estuarine Science) in 1987 as a Postdoctorate/Research Assistant Professor based at Horn Point Laboratory. In Australia, Bill developed an active Marine Botany group at the University of Queensland with strong links to the Healthy Waterways Campaign for Moreton Bay. Bill obtained his academic training from Western Michigan University (B.A., Biology & Environmental Science), the University of Alaska (M.S., Biological Oceanography), The University of Chicago (Ph.D., Biology), and State University of New York at Stony Brook at Stony Brook (Postdoc, Coastal Marine Scholar).
Abby Dilley, Senior Mediator, has over fourteen years of experience in facilitation and mediation of scientifically complex, and highly controversial public policy issues in the areas of natural resources, environment, agriculture, biotechnology and human health. She has successfully mediated policy disputes resulting in the development of legislation on pesticides, and implementation of regulations concerning food labeling, accelerated approval of therapeutics for HIV/AIDS, prescription medicine labeling and information, and protection of plant germ plasm. One of her projects addressing the establishment of studies to optimize medical management of HIV Infection resulted in an institutionalized public/private collaboration called the Forum for Collaborative HIV Research. Ms. Dilley has worked with a very broad range of stakeholders from the public and private sectors, and non-government organizational communities at the local, state, regional, national and international levels. She holds a bachelors degree in Biology from The Colorado College, and a masters degree in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from the University of Michigan.
Sidney Draggan, Ecologist, Senior Science and Science Policy Advisor, served most recently to the Assistant Administrator for Research and Development at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. He joined the staff of the Immediate Office of the Assistant Administrator in 1997 after serving for two years as Special Assistant for Science to the Administrator (Carol Browner) and Deputy Administrator (Fred Hansen) of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. He is an Ecologist (Ph.D. in Systems Ecology) with special interests in science policy research and analysis; environmental assessment, monitoring and management; chemical testing and control; and international environment policy.
Paul R. Epstein, M.D., M.P.H. is Associate Director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School and is a medical doctor trained in tropical public health. Paul has worked in medical, teaching and research capacities in Africa, Asia and Latin America and, in 1993, coordinated an eight-part series on Health and Climate Change for the British medical journal, Lancet. He has worked with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to assess the health impacts of climate change and develop health applications of climate forecasting and remote sensing. He also served as a reviewer for the Health chapter of the Millenium Ecosystem Assessment, and was the lead author of Climate Change Futures: Health, Ecological and Economic Dimensions, a report released on November 1, 2005 after a three-year collaboration between the Center for Health and the Global Environment, Swiss Re and the United Nations Development Programme.
Gary W. Erbeck, MPH, REHS, is the Director of the San Diego County Department of Environmental Health and the recipient of the 2006 Beverlee A. Myers Award for Excellence in Public Health. Mr. Erbeck’s passionate dedication to environmental health has been instrumental in improving the lives of Californians. His leadership has provided a model of excellence in the field. In his roles as Director of his Department, Chair of the California Conference of Directors of Environmental Health, and the Food Safety Policy Committee he led the charge to develop a new California Retail Food Code; addressed the critical issue of protecting school children from food borne illness; participated in hazardous materials emergency response and Project Clean Water along with numerous other community, industry, media, regulatory, and school efforts. He has positively impacted the public’s health on every level.
Milton Friend, Ph.D., is Director Emeritus of the USGS National Wildlife Health Center. Dr. Friend will chair a session on the ecology of water and health, and is a member of the conference planning committee. Dr. Friend has had a distinguished career in government service that has encompassed national and international issues on wildlife health, biology and conservation. Dr. Friend served as Executive Director of the Salton Sea Science Committee from 1998 to 2002, to develop and oversee the science program for the Salton Sea Restoration Project. His many honors and awards include the Department of the Interior´s Meritorious Service and Distinguished Service Awards.
Howard Frumkin, M.D., is the Director of the National Center for Environmental Health (NCEH), at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Dr. Frumkin will deliver the keynote address on the first day of the conference. Prior to joining NCEH, Dr. Frumkin served as Professor and Chair of the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University, and Professor of Medicine at Emory Medical School, in Atlanta. He is an internist, environmental and occupational medicine specialist, and epidemiologist. He founded the Environmental and Occupational Medicine Consultation Clinic at The Emory Clinic and directed it from 1991 to 2000.
Mary Gant is a Program Analyst in the Bethesda Office of OSPP. She advises the NIEHS and OSPP directors on Congressional activities and legislation related to biomedical and environmental research and regulation. In addition, she represents NIH/NIEHS on the U.S. Global Change Research Program Subcommittee, an interagency committee that coordinates federal research related to climate and environmental change. Mary has an A.B. from Vassar College and an M.S. in Mathematics from Northwestern University.
Lynn Goldman, M.D., has joint appointments in Health Policy and Management and Epidemiology as a Professor at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. Dr. Goldman will serve as moderator for a symposium on decisionmaking in the real world in the conference. In 1993, Dr. Goldman was appointed to serve as Assistant Administrator (AA) for the EPA's Office of Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic Substances, serving in that position for more than five years. She was responsible for the nation's pesticide, toxic substances and pollution prevention laws. Dr. Goldman has served on numerous boards and expert committees, including the Committee on Environmental Health of the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Centers for Disease Control Lead Poisoning Prevention Advisory Committee, and committees for the National Research Council. She currently is Vice Chair of the Institute of Medicine Roundtable on Environmental Health Sciences.
Bernard D. Goldstein, M.D., is Dean Emeritus of the University Of Pittsburgh Graduate School Of Public Health. Dr. Goldstein will chair a roundtable on “systems thinking” at the conference, and is a member of the conference planning committee. An environmental toxicologist, his research interests have focused largely on the concept of biological markers in the field of risk assessment. Prior to the University of Pittsburgh, Dr. Goldstein was Chairman of the Department of Environmental and Community Medicine at the University of Medicine and Dentistry, New Jersey-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, where he directed the largest academic environmental and occupational health program in the U.S. -- the Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute. He also has served as an officer with the U.S. Public Health Service and as Assistant Administrator for Research and Development at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Richard Gragg III teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in environmental toxicology and human health, environmental toxicology, environmental justice, and environmental ethics. Dr. Gragg is also the Director of the Center for Environmental Equity and Justice for the State of Florida. His research interests include: [a] ecosystem and human health impacts of light absorption by environmental contaminants; [b] environmental justice and policy; and [c] environmental health disparities. Dr. Gragg is a member of the Environmental Protection Agency's National Environmental Justice Advisory Council and its Health and Research Subcommittee. Dr. Gragg also serves as a member of the Board of Directors for Audubon of Florida and is Co-Chair of the Communications and Outreach Subcommittee, and the Florida Brownfields Association and is Co-Chair of the Environmental Justice and Public Health Subcommittee. Richard has a Ph. D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences/Toxicology, Florida A&M University, 1994; M.S., Pharmacology, Florida A&M University, Tallahassee, FL, 1986; and a B.S., Biochemistry, SUNY Binghamton University, Binghamton, NY 1980.
Francesca Grifo, is a Senior Scientist and the Director of Scientific Integrity Program a t the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). She acts to mobilize scientists and citizens to defend the integrity of government science from political interference. Dr. Grifo came to UCS in 2005 from Columbia University where she directed the Center for Environmental Research and Conservation graduate policy workshop and ran the Science Teachers Environmental Education Program. Prior to that, she was director of the Center for Biodiversity and Conservation and a curator of the Hall of Biodiversity at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Dr. Grifo edited and contributed to the books Biodiversity and Human Health and The Living Planet in Crisis; biodiversity science and policy. In addition to her scholarly work, Dr. Grifo was the manager of the International Cooperative Biodiversity Groups Program at the National Institutes of Health. She was also a senior program officer for Central and Eastern European for the Biodiversity Support Program, a consortium of the World Resources Institute, the Nature Conservancy, and the World Wildlife Fund; and an AAAS Fellow in the Office of Research at the Agency for International Development. Francesca earned her PhD in botany from Cornell, and a BA in biology from Smith College. She currently holds adjunct appointments at Columbia and Georgetown.
Tee L. Guidotti, MD, MPH, is Chair of the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health and Professor of Environmental and Occupational Health at George Washington University, and a Professor of Occupational and Environmental Medicine and Director of the Division of Occupational Medicine and Toxicology at GW's School of Medicine and Health Sciences. Dr. Guidotti is chairing a session on the socially-mediated linkages between resource depletion and health for the conference. Dr. Guidotti is Director of EOH's Center for Risk Science and Public Health and Co-Director of its Mid-Atlantic Center for Children's Health and the Environment. Dr. Guidotti spent most of his career as a professor at the University of Alberta, Canada. He is currently serving as President of the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine.
Susan D. Haseltine is the Associate Director for Biology at USGS. Her federal career has included several research positions in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Her research interests include science-based approaches to conservation and integration of fish and wildlife needs on landscapes. Susan holds a Ph.D. in zoology from Ohio State University.
David M. Hassenzahl, Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Environmental Studies, University of Nevada, Las Vegas,is an internationally recognized expert on risk analysis for societal decision-making, with public and private sector experience. His research focuses on the management and interpretation of uncertainty. His contributions include numerous publications, among them the influential Princeton University Press book Should We Risk It. He Chairs the Society for Risk Analysis Education Committee, and is President-Elect of the Risk Assessment and Policy Association. He has received the UNLV Foundation Distinguished Teaching Award, and both the Outstanding Researcher and Outstanding Teacher Awards from the Greenspun College of Urban Affairs.
Shelley Hearne was the founding Executive Director of Trust for America's Health and a Visiting Scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health where she teaches on public health infrastructure, advocacy, and emergency preparedness. She was the national recipient of the 2004 Delta Omega Curriculum Award honoring innovative public health teaching. Dr. Hearne has worked in various roles in government and non-governmental organizations, including serving as the Executive Director of the Pew Environmental Health Commission and Director of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection's Office of Pollution Prevention. She is a past-Chair of the American Public Health Association's Executive Board and former Vice President of the Council on Education for Public Health – the accreditation body for public health schools. She has served on numerous national committees, ranging from the CDC Office of Terrorism Preparedness and Emergency Response External Workgroup to the US EPA's Children's Health Protection Advisory Committee, where she chaired their working group designated to identify five rules, regulations, or policies that should be revised to better protect children. Shelley holds a bachelor's degree in chemistry and environmental studies with honors from Bowdoin College and a doctorate in environmental health sciences from Columbia University's School of Public Health.
Mary Tyler Johnson, MPA, MPH is an environmental health consultant and works with several non-profits and private foundations. Her work is focused on the links between exposures to environmental toxicants and a variety of health outcomes in women and girls. Mary also sits on the boards of the Johnson Family Foundation and the Green Guide Institute. Before entering the field of environmental health, Mary spent six years working on a variety of HIV/AIDS-related initiatives in the US and abroad. Most recently she was the Program Manager for HIV Peer Education Program at Columbia University’s International Center for AIDS Care and Treatment Programs (ICAP). Prior to working at Columbia, Mary was a Director at the New York-based strategic communications firm Robinson Lerer & Montgomery (RLM), where she was involved in several major public health campaigns. Mary holds a Master of Public Health and a Master of Public Administration from Columbia University. She earned a BA in English Literature at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut.
William Karesh, D.V.M., heads the Field Veterinary Program (FVP) of the Wildlife Conservation Society, which has over 300 field projects in 50 countries around the world. Dr. Karesh was hired to develop this program in 1989 to address health-related issues among field biologists and conservationists. The program provides services overseas for the Society’s field staff as well as workers from government agencies and non-governmental organizations. The FVP also conducts research on the health status of free-ranging wildlife populations, provides training for foreign veterinarians and biologists, and frequently assists overseas organizations and agencies with wildlife translocations, as well as confiscation and rehabilitation issues. Major initiatives of the FVP include the development of multi-national wildlife/livestock/human health programs and policy consultation for developing country governments and bilateral aid organizations. Dr. Karesh is also Co-Chair of the IUCN SSC Veterinary Specialist Group.
Caroline Karp is a Senior Lecturer in Brown University's Center for Environmental Studies. She teaches the introductory course in environmental studies, upper level courses in domestic and international environmental policy, and a seminar on property rights in natural resources. She often uses service learning and distance learning techniques in these courses to engage students in research that involves and benefits the community. Her areas of interest are coastal and marine watershed management, water law and urban environmental policy. She has been working in southwest Madagascar since 1999 with Brown students and support from various Malagasy agencies to examine the effects of eco-tourism and market development on the village economy and the reef ecosystem. Prior to joining Brown in 1992, Karp directed the Narragansett Bay Project, an $11 million public research and planning initiative that resulted in the Narragansett Bay Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan. In addition, Karp has over 15 years of experience in marine pollution ecology, development of water pollution control policy, and environmental law and serves on a variety of state and local environmental advisory committees.
Jerry Keusch is an Assistant Provost for Global Health, Boston University Medical Campus and an Associate Dean for Global Health at Boston University School of Public Health. Prior to this appointment, Dr. Keusch served as Director of the Fogarty International Center at the National Institutes of Health and Associate Director for International Research in the office of the NIH Director. A graduate of Columbia College and Harvard Medical School, he is Board Certified in Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases. He has been involved in clinical medicine, teaching and research for his entire career, most recently as Professor of Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine and Senior Attending Physician and Chief of the Division of Geographic Medicine and Infectious Diseases, at the New England Medical Center in Boston, MA. His research has ranged from the molecular pathogenesis of tropical infectious diseases to field research in nutrition, immunology, host susceptibility, and the treatment of tropical infectious diseases and HIV/AIDS. He was a Faculty Associate at Harvard Institute for International Development in the Health Office. Dr. Keusch is the author of over 300 original publications, reviews and book chapters, and he is the editor of 8 scientific books. He is the recipient of the Squibb, Finland and Bristol awards for research excellence of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, and has delivered numerous named lectures on topics of science and global health at leading institutions around the world. He is presently involved in international health research and policy with the NIH, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine, the United Nations, and the World Health Organization.
Shelley Kossak, NCSE’s Director of Development and University Relations, is a member of the organization’s conference team, responsible for conference outreach and marketing as well as advising on presenters. Ms. Kossak served as Vice President and Washington Director of the Population Resource Center for twelve years and has over 20 years experience in nonprofit program development and management, with expertise in organizing educational programs for national and local policymakers, having worked at the Coalition of Northeastern Governors and the National Association of Counties.
Leyla Erk McCurdy is Senior Director, Health & Environment for the National Environmental Education Foundation. She has contributed in leadership capacity to several environmental health initiatives over the last fifteen years. At the National Environmental Education Foundation she serves as the environmental health expert for the organization, directs environmental health program activities, including the Health Care Provider Initiative which employs a strategic framework to integrate environmental health into health care, and manages expert advisory committees and coalitions of various stakeholders. Previously she directed the American Lung Association's national programs. She has served on several governmental and non-governmental committees and expert panels, given numerous presentations, organized trainings and developed a variety of environmental health publications.
Ken Olden, Ph.D., is Director Emeritus of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences of the National Institutes for Health. Dr. Olden will moderate a symposium on “Guiding Research” at the conference. Dr. Olden is a highly regarded cancer researcher whose 34-year career has included appointments at Harvard University Medical School and the National Cancer Institute. He remains an active researcher/scholar and has published 159 articles and book chapters dealing with cancer biology and environmental health research and policy. Dr. Olden was appointed by President George Bush to serve on the National Cancer Advisory Board, and was elected to membership in the Institute of Medicine. He is also a recipient of the prestigious City of Medicine Award for “extraordinary achievements in medicine in the public interest,” and was presented the Presidential Meritorious and Executive Rank Awards by President William Clinton.
Jonathan Patz, MD, MPH, is Associate Professor of Environmental Studies and Population Health Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he directs a university-wide initiative on Global Environmental Health. He is an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and also an Affiliate Scientist of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). He has served as Co-chair for the Health Expert Panel of the US National Assessment on Climate Variability and Change, Convening Lead Author for the United Nations/World Bank Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, and Lead author on several United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports and World Health Organization (WHO) monographs on climate change. He currently is Co-Editor for the journal, Ecohealth: Conservation Medicine and Ecosystem Sustainability, and has co-edited a textbook: Ecosystem Change and Public Health: A Global Perspective, published in 2001. Dr. Patz has written over 50 peer-reviewed scientific papers addressing the health effects of global environmental change. From 1996-2000, he was principal investigator for the largest US multi-institutional study on climate change health risks and has briefed the US Congress, Administration, and federal agency leaders, and has served on committees of the National Academy of Sciences. His areas of research investigation include the effects of climate change on heat waves, air pollution and water- and vector-borne infectious diseases, as well as the link between deforestation and the resurgence of malaria in the Amazon. He has earned medical board certification in both Occupational/Environmental Medicine and Family Medicine and received his medical degree from Case Western Reserve University and his Master of Public Health (MPH) degree from Johns Hopkins University. In 2005, he was awarded as an Aldo Leopold Leadership Fellow.
David Rapport is Principal of EcoHealth Consulting, as well as former Professor in the School of Environmental Design and Rural Development, University of Guelph (Guelph, Ontario, Canada) and honorary Professor in the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, The University of Western Ontario (London, Ontario, Canada). His research focuses on the science and politics of healthy ecosystems, including field studies in the development and validation of eco-cultural indicators of ecosystem health. He is the co-developer of the Stress-Response Environmental Statistical System, also known as the Pressure-State-Response system (an approach that provides a conceptual and statistical basis for reporting on the human/ecosystem interaction, adopted by governments and intergovernmental agencies as the basis for integrating human activity and the environment into state of environment reporting). Dr. Rapport was Founding President of the International Society for Ecosystem Health and Founding Editor-in-Chief of its journal, Ecosystem Health (published by Blackwell Science 1995-2001). He serves on the editorial boards of EcoHealth (Springer Verlag), Ecological Indicators (Elsevier), and Ecological Economics (Elsevier). Author of over 200 peer-reviewed scientific publications, his recent books include: Ecosystem Health (Blackwell Science, 1998); Transdisciplinarity: reCreating Integrated Knowledge (with M.A. Somerville; McGill/Queens U. Press 2002); and Managing for Healthy Ecosystems (Lewis Publishers 2003).
Nathalie Valette-Silver is the NOAA/ National Ocean Service Director for the Cooperative Center for Marine Animal Health in the National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science. Dr. Valette-Silver holds two Masters and a PhD in oceanography, volcanology and geothermal systems, and environmental sciences. She has a broad experience ranging from teaching, basic and applied research as well as management and science policy. She has been working on environmental issues for more than 20 years.
Ashbindu Singh, Ph.D., is the Regional Coordinator for the Division of Early Warning & Assessment -North America United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). He has a strong multidisciplinary background with postgraduate degrees in physical and natural sciences and a Ph.D. in environmental science. He has 29 years of work experience: 13 years working with the Indian Forest Service (1977-1990) in various capacities at local, provincial and national levels and over 16 years with UNEP in different parts of the world. He is intimately involved in analyzing environmental sustainability issues around the globe. He has over 100 publications including 35 UNEP reports, in peer reviewed scientific journals and conferences, on various environmental issues. Findings of his research work are extensive referred by the scientific community and those involved in the environmental policy formulations. One of his papers titled “Digital change detection techniques using remotely sensed data” has made a lasting impact in the field of remote sensing. The team under his direction has produced highly influential reports on various environmental issues including global forests, threats to freshwater, coastal vulnerability, linkage between environment and health (Assessment of Risks and Threats to Human Health Associated with the Degradation of Ecosystems), environmental conflicts, transboundary air pollutants (Transboundary Movement of Airborne Pollutants), biodiversity and UNEP’s best seller ever publication, “One Planet Many People: Atlas of Our Changing Environment.” His current interest focuses on how to bridge the gap between science and policy and applications and communication of earth observations technologies for environmental assessment and monitoring.
Bailus Walker Jr., PhD, MPH, is the Advisory Panel Chair, State Planning Grant and Professor of Environmental and Occupational Medicine and Toxicology, Howard University College of Medicine. From 1988 — 1990, Dr. Walker was professor of environmental health at the School of Public Health, State University of New York at Albany. For four years (1990-1994) he was dean of the public health faculty at University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. Dr. Walker has served as commissioner of public health for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and chairman of the Massachusetts Public Health Council. Earlier he was state director of public health for Michigan on appointment by the governor of Michigan. From 1979 — 1981, he was director of occupational health standards, Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), US Department of Labor. Dr. Walker is also a National Institutes of Health advisor on environmental health aspects of biodefense research. Dr. Walker is a graduate of the University of Michigan and holds a Ph.D. (environmental and occupational medicine) from the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis.
Robert Wingfield, Director of Community Environmental Programs, Fisk University, received his Ph.D from the University of Cincinnati in Physical Bioorganic Chemistry, and conducted his Postdoctoral work in Medicinal Chemistry at the University of Kansas. He has over 12 years industrial experience in chemical process and product development (Dow Chemical Company, Ford Motor Company, G.D. Searle Co.), several Summer Faculty Internships in the United States EPA and industrial laboratories (GTE) and twelve years academic teaching experience (including a six month Visiting Professorship at Wesleyan University.) He is presently teaching courses in General, Analytical, Inorganic and Environmental Chemistry. His current interests include research in the degradation of hazardous waste, faculty development, academic and community youth chemical and environmental education, sustainable community development, and the use of new environmental management tools to increase public participation in environmental decision-making. He is currently active in the Nashville Section of the American Chemical Society, TN 2000 Environmental Initiative, and the Healthy Nashville 2000 + Initiative. Dr. Wingfield previously served as the Project Director for the EPA funded, UNCF administered Program for Environmental Justice, Education and Research, which ended in 1999.
