Ten Scientists Selected to Communicate Environmental Health Science

http://environmentalhealthnews.org/ehs/Members/2010fellowsannounce

Charlottesville, VA, February 17, 2010 -- Ten scientists representing diverse disciplines are the newest group of Science Communication Fellows at Environmental Health Sciences (EHS) who will be trained in translating science.

This year's Fellows will spend the next year polishing their communication skills and learning effective ways to inform journalists and general audiences about new research findings. They will work with reporters and writing staff at EHS to produce original research reviews and commentaries on media coverage of new research. Additionally, they will be available as sources to journalists seeking information for stories related to environmental health.

The Fellows' training begins this week with a two-day conference in Washington, DC.

The Fellows program, now in its fourth year, trains scientists early in their careers to become more effective at deepening public understanding of environmental health science and green chemistry. Unique to the program is the use of scientists to identify and explain the findings that shed light on the link between the environment and human health.

New this year is a partnership with another Charlottesville-based organization, Advancing Green Chemistry; two scientists from Yale University will represent this field. The cross training will produce future scientific leaders who understand the unique environmental health problems addressed by creating more benign chemical products as well as innovative clean up solutions.

Environmental Health Sciences (EHS) sponsors the fellowships. EHS publishes Environmental Health News (http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/) and The Daily Climate (http://www.dailyclimate.org/).

The 2010 Fellows are accomplished scientists representing a wide range of interests, experiences and universities. They bring to the program a commitment to public education and collective skills as educators, writers and lecturers. Their professional and academic backgrounds range from environmental toxicology to epidemiology to green chemistry.

Every month, the Fellows will translate new research findings into short written summaries for a non-specialist audience that are then published electronically. They will also write brief reviews commenting on how well the media are covering environmental health science.

During the past two decades, scientific breakthroughs have led to significant changes in how environmental health is studied and clinically practiced. The public and many journalists are unaware of how profoundly this research has evolved. The Fellows – at the interface between science and journalism – address this large gap between frontiers of environmental health science and public understanding of the discipline.

The Fellows were selected through a competitive process by a selection committee of seven prominent scientists, including: Lynn R. Goldman, Johns Hopkins University; Louis J. Guillette, Jr., University of Florida-Gainesville; Patricia A. Hunt, Washington State University; Richard J. Jackson, University of California-Los Angeles; Shuk-mei Ho, University of Cincinnati; Shanna H. Swan, University of Rochester; and Frederick vom Saal, University of Missouri-Columbia.

The 2010 Science Communication Fellows

Emily Barrett, Ph.D., is a research assistant professor in obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Rochester. She studies how prenatal exposure to environmental chemicals (such as phthalates) affects the development of the reproductive and nervous systems in humans.

Evan Beach, Ph.D., is an associate research scientist at the Center for Green Chemistry & Green Engineering at Yale University. A synthetic organic chemist by training, he works to develop alternatives to hazardous chemical products and processes. His current research focuses on polymers, fine chemicals, and other useful materials from renewable materials.

Thea M. Edwards, Ph.D., a research assistant professor at Tulane University, investigates how environmental contaminants, particularly nitrate, disrupt animal and plant physiology and reproduction. Her current work examines if and how environmental contaminants alter natural symbiotic partnerships between legume plants and soil bacteria; these partnerships are needed for sustainable nitrogen fixation – an alternative to man-made fertilizer and the reason legumes (beans, peanuts, etc.) are protein-rich foods.

Giffe Johnson, Ph.D., is a research assistant professor at the University of South Florida in the College of Public Health. Dr. Johnson conducts human epidemiology and toxicological investigations within the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health. His current research includes pesticide biomonitoring in agricultural workers and investigating cell functions that protect the liver from chemical insult.

Jennifer F. Nyland, Ph.D., is an assistant professor at University of South Carolina School of Medicine. As an immunotoxicologist, she studies the impacts of environmental contaminants, such as mercury, on how susceptible people are to autoimmune disease. Toward this end, Dr Nyland translates findings from animal studies, applying them to understand these impacts in human populations.

Patrick H. Ryan, Ph.D. is an assistant professor in the Department of Environmental Health at the University of Cincinnati. An epidemiologist, Dr. Ryan’s research focuses on assessing exposure to air pollution and naturally-occurring, asbestos-like fibers on lung health. He currently studies how children exposed to diesel exhaust particles may develop asthma, analyzes what particulate matter is made of, examines the impact of traffic-related air pollution at schools and measures environmental exposure to asbestos-like fibers in North Dakota and Montana.

Heather Stapleton, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University. Dr. Stapleton is an environmental chemist/ecotoxicologist who studies emerging organic pollutants, including fire retardants. She is interested in where they come from, where they go and how they are transformed into other chemicals. Her current research focuses on how children are exposed to flame retardant chemicals indoors and if the contaminants affect thyroid hormone regulation.

Laura Vandenberg, Ph.D., is a postdoctoral fellow at Tufts University. As a developmental biologist, she is interested in understanding how changes during embryonic development lead to diseases later in life. Part of her research is focused on determining current human exposure levels to the endocrine disruptor bisphenol A. Her laboratory research examines how chemicals that alter pH and ion flux in cells affect left-right development patterns and skull/face bone formation.

Adelina Voutchkova, Ph.D., is a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Green Chemistry and Green Engineering at Yale University. Her research focuses on the design of chemicals with minimal toxic and environmental hazards. To do this, she uses computer models  to predict chemical properties and then compares the chemicals that are relatively safe to those that are highly toxic. The ultimate aim is to inform chemists with a set of design rules they can follow to avoid making highly dangerous chemicals and to avoid or minimize toxicity testing using animals.

Ami Zota, Sci.D., is a postdoctoral fellow in the Program on Reproductive Health and Environment at the University of California, San Francisco. She uses her expertise in epidemiology, exposure assessment, and environmental justice to investigate the cumulative impacts of environmental and social factors on reproductive health. Her current work focuses on effects of environmental chemical exposure (such as PBDE flame retardants, PCBs and PFOAs) on thyroid hormone function, cardiovascular function and birth outcomes in an ethnically and socioeconomically diverse population of pregnant women.

Environmental Health Sciences (EHS), publisher of the daily news service EnvironmentalHealthNews.org and TheDailyClimate.org, sponsors the fellowship. EHS, based in Charlottesville, Va., is a non-profit organization that promotes public understanding of links between environmental factors and human health. The Science Communication Fellows program is funded by a grant from the Kendeda Fund.

Contact: Environmental Health Sciences: Pete Myers 434.220.0348 or Wendy Hessler 402.397.9928 or 402.672.1715, whessler@ehsic.org

Science Communication Network: Amy Kostant, amy@sciencecom.org, 202.463.6670

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Last update: August 10, 2010