Ten Scientists Named As Environmental Health Science Communication Fellows

Charlottesville, VA, April 2, 2009 -- A group of 10 scientists will work to increase public awareness and understanding of environmental health science as Science Communication Fellows. The Fellows program trains junior scientists to communicate and promote new research findings to the public and the media.

The program is sponsored by Environmental Health Sciences (EHS), publisher of Environmental Health News (www.environmentalhealthnews.org) and The Daily Climate (www.dailyclimate.org). Each Fellow will receive a $5,000 stipend for the year-long appointment.

Unique to the program is the use of scientists to find and place into context important new research results. This innovative training program puts the Fellows at the interface between science and journalism to address the large gap between current frontiers of environmental health science and public understanding of the discipline.

Every month, the Fellows will identify and translate important, newly published research results about the environment and its links to human health. Their published summaries will make the research conclusions more accessible to reporters and to a broader public audience. They will also write brief reviews commenting on how the media cover the science behind environmental health issues.

During the past two decades, scientific breakthroughs have led to significant changes in how environmental health is studied and clinically practiced. Most of the public and many journalists are unaware of how profoundly this research has evolved. The Fellows program provides a tool to help them better understand the broader implications of significant and innovative research.

The program addresses these concerns by alerting journalists and the public to new scientific results by posting lay language summaries on EnvironmentalHealthNews.org. The Fellows will work with seasoned reporters and writing staff at EHS to produce the original reviews and commentaries.

The 2009 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 neurotoxicology.

A selection committee of seven prominent scientists chose the Fellows. Members of the selection committee are: 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 2009 Science Communication Fellows

David Buchwalter, Ph.D., is an assistant professor at North Carolina State University. As a comparative physiologist, he studies aquatic insects - an ecologically important group that is widely used among researchers to indicate the health of aquatic environments. His current work with metals (selenium, mercury, cadmium and others) focuses on understanding how they differentially accumulate in different species, cause toxicity to them and move through feeding levels in ecosystems.

Jonathan Chevrier, Ph.D., is an epidemiologist with expertise in biostatistics, toxicology and endocrinology. As a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, he uses both traditional and novel computer-based statistical techniques to study the effect of environmental exposures -- such as PCBs and flame retardants -- and work-related chemical exposures -- such as lubricants used during the manufacture of metal parts -- on thyroid function, brain development and mortality.

Paul Eubig, D.V.M., Research Associate, University of Illinois, is a neurotoxicologist who studies how exposure to environmental contaminants before and after birth affect behavior, such as attention and the ability to stop inappropriate actions. His research evaluates the effects of PCBs, PBDEs, and methylmercury on brain signals that rely on the neurotransmitter dopamine. Originally a practicing veterinarian and then a clinical toxicologist, he has a master’s degree in basic toxicology, is board certified by the American Board of Toxicology and is now completing his Ph.D.

Heather Hamlin, Ph.D., is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Florida. Her research focuses on understanding the effects of environmental contaminants -- mainly chemicals such as pesticides, fertilizers and industrial chemicals -- on the reproductive health of wildlife populations and looks for similar effects in humans. She studies the effects of nitrate on hormone production of a threatened sturgeon species and of estrogen like compounds on alligators living in polluted environments.

Kim Harley, Ph.D., is a research scientist at the University of California, Berkeley and Associate Director of UC Berkeley's Center for Children's Environmental Health Research. An epidemiologist, Dr. Harley studies environmental exposures and reproductive health. Her work concentrates on pesticide exposure to mothers and children living in a migrant farm worker community. She is particularly interested in the association between chemical exposures and fertility, birth outcome and child development.

Karen Kidd, Ph.D., looks at the big picture in her research as a Canada Research Chair and biology professor at the University of New Brunswick in Saint John, NB, Canada. She uses her background in aquatic ecology and toxicology to understand how pollutants, such as pesticides and metals, from municipal and industrial effluents, aquaculture and agricultural runoff concentrate through freshwater food webs to reach levels that can be harmful to invertebrates, wildlife and human health. Notably, she led a whole lake experiment showing the devastating effects estrogens in birth control pills have on fish populations.

Michele La Merrill, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow in environmental pediatrics at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, investigates ways that environmental chemicals interact with genes to influence hormonal changes throughout life, including those associated with puberty timing, obesity, diabetes and breast cancer. Her current work examines how exposure to plastics contributes to genetic changes in human placenta.

Negin P. Martin, Ph.D., is a research fellow in a federal research laboratory in Research Triangle Park. Her research focuses on how dioxin and other environmental toxins affect the molecular workings of the thyroid hormone system -- specifically, how contaminants may change the hormones that control brain development/aging and metabolism, possibly contributing to learning disorders, degenerative disease and obesity. She is particularly interested in outlining the biochemical signaling paths responsible for rapid thyroid hormone signaling in brain cells.

Kathleen M. McCarty, Sc.D., M.P.H., is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Environmental Health Sciences, with a joint appointment at the Yale University School of Medicine and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. She is a molecular epidemiologist who studies gene-environment interactions and host susceptibility factors and their influence on biomarker response and disease risk or survival. Her primary areas of interest include environmental exposure to metals, as well as breast cancer epidemiology.

Heather Patisaul, Ph.D., is interested in how pre-birth exposure to compounds that interfere with the hormone system affect brain development. As an assistant professor at North Carolina State University, she examines the cell mechanisms that dictate how early life exposures to estrogen-like compounds found in plants and plastics can change the male/female hormone circuits of the brain and affect female reproductive physiology and behavior.

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 (cell), whessler@ehsic.org

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

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