Environmental Health Sciences

Along with providing education and training, the Department of Environmental Health Sciences faculty and researchers have achieved national and international reputations for excellence in their respective fields of research and expertise. Short summaries of faculty are detailed below.

Department Chair

Dana Dolinoy, PhD
The Dolinoy lab investigates environmental epigenetics & epigenomics in relation to the developmental origins of health and disease (DOHaD), and the role of diet and nutrition in modulating chemical exposure (e.g. bisphenol A, phthalates, mercury, and lead) through epigenetic mechanisms including DNA methylation and chromatin structure.

Department Associate Chair, Curriculum

Simone Charles, PhD
Public health practice and research translation working with academic-community partnerships to address health impacts of environmental hazard exposures on underserved rural and urban communities.

Department Associate Chair, Strategic Initiatives

J. Tim Dvonch, PhD
Exposure assessment and health effects of air pollution, with a focus on chemical composition of particulates and source identification. Atmospheric transport and fate of toxicants including mercury and other metals across a wide array of environmental systems.

Core Faculty

Stuart Batterman, PhD
Exposure assessment, biological monitoring, human health risk and environmental impact assessment, innovative measurement techniques for air pollutants, and environmental policy including indoor and ambient air quality, hazardous waste and drinking water.

Justin Colacino, PhD
Environmental and dietary factors in carcinogenesis and cancer prevention, environmental dysregulation of stem cell biology in breast cancer, racial disparities in breast cancer, environmental epigenetics, nutrient-toxicant and toxicant-toxicant interactions

Simone Charles, PhD
Public health practice and research translation working with academic-community partnerships to address health impacts of environmental hazard exposures on underserved rural and urban communities.

Dana Dolinoy, PhD
The Dolinoy lab investigates environmental epigenetics & epigenomics in relation to the developmental origins of health and disease (DOHaD), and the role of diet and nutrition in modulating chemical exposure (e.g. bisphenol A, phthalates, mercury, and lead) through epigenetic mechanisms including DNA methylation and chromatin structure.

J. Tim Dvonch, PhD
Exposure assessment and health effects of air pollution, with a focus on chemical composition of particulates and source identification. Atmospheric transport and fate of toxicants including mercury and other metals across a wide array of environmental systems.

Alfred Franzblau, MD
Work-related musculoskeletal disorders, chemical exposures (e.g., dioxins and metals in the environment), and occupational and environmental lung disease (e.g., pneumoconioses, asthma, hypersensitivity pneumonitis).

Jaclyn Goodrich, PhD
Epigenetic modification by environmental exposures throughout the lifespan; contribution of epigenetic perturbation to toxicity and disease including cardiovascular and metabolic outcomes; gene-environment interactions; heavy metal toxicology.

Sean Harris, PhD
Female reproductive toxicology focusing on adverse pregnancy outcomes; toxicant impacts in placenta and fetal membranes; toxicant-pathogen interactions; computational approaches to female reproductive toxicology; extracellular vesicle biology.

Olivier Jolliet, PhD
Risk of consumer products & cosmetic ingredients, global pollution & trade, pesticide residues, impact & nutritional benefits of food, Life Cycle Assessment, high throughput exposure screening, indoor & outdoor intake fractions, multiscale multimedia fate & exposure modeling, toxicokinetic.

Patricia Koman, MPP, PhD
Public policy, air pollution, climate change, environmental epidemiology, environmental equity, chemical policy, risk assessment and communication.

Aurora Le, PhD, MPH, CPH, CSP
Highly infectious disease mitigation and management, particularly in non-healthcare workers; the intersection between industrial hygiene, occupational safety, and health behavior; and psychosocial factors that impact occupational health.

John Meeker, ScD, CIH
Exposure assessment and epidemiology studies investigating negative health effects associated with exposure to pesticides, phthalates, bisphenol A, flame retardants, PCBs, tobacco smoke, and other agents.

Richard Neitzel, PhD, MS, CIH, FAIHA
Use of novel approaches and technologies to characterize and control exposures to safety hazards, noise, ototoxins, and psychosocial stressors, and evaluation of the relationships between these exposures and injury, auditory, and cardiovascular health outcomes.

Marie S. O'Neill, PhD
Environmental epidemiology, air pollution, climate change, environmental equity, international health, cardiovascular mechanisms, and birth outcomes.

Bambarendage (Pini) Perera, PhD
Environmental epigenetics, ncRNA biomarkers, genomic imprinting, Toxicology.

Thomas Robins, MD, MPH
Exposure assessment and disease outcomes, epidemiology of inhaled toxins (coal dust, lead, allergens and ambient air pollutants, metalworking fluid aerosols, DDT); information transfer.

Laura S. Rozek, PhD
Population based studies focusing on the epigenetic, environmental and genetic risk factors that contribute to the development of human cancer; specifically head and neck and colorectal cancers. Gene-environment and epigenetic-environment contributions to the risk of human chronic diseases.

Laurie Svoboda, PhD
Environmental epigenetics and epigenomics, developmental origins of health and disease, toxicant-induced metabolic reprogramming, effects of toxicants on redox homeostasis.

Deborah Watkins, PhD
Epidemiology of endocrine disrupting chemicals and developmental outcomes, including growth, metabolism, puberty, and neurobehavioral development; statistical methods for addressing exposure mixtures and windows of susceptibility.

Chuanwu Xi, PhD
Biofilms, water quality and treatment, global environmental health, molecular microbial ecology, gut microbiome, antibiotic resistance, infectious diseases, Acinetobacterbaumannii,andHelicobacter pylori.

Lecturers

Ingrid Bergin, DVM, DACLAM, DACVP
Toxicologic pathology and infectious diseases

Gregg Grubb, CIH
Control of Exposures to Airborne Contaminants.

Bradley Joseph, PhD
Ergonomics, industrial hygiene.

Jan Lach, PE, CSP
Occupational health, safety, and environmental management systems; preventing injuries through design; system safety; hazard identification and risk assessment

Bert Schiller, CIH
Occupational health aspects of industrial processes.

Faculty with Joint Appointments

Toby C Lewis, MD, MPH
Epidemiology and public health of childhood respiratory disease, particularly the interplay of biologic, environmental, and social factors in the development and exacerbation of asthma

Mats Ljungman, PhD
DNA damage and repair, DNA damage-induced cellular responses, radio sensitization

Sung Kyun Park, ScD, MPH
Environmental and occupational epidemiology, gene-environment and nutrient-environment interactions, multi-pollutants and pollutant mixtures.

Karen E. Peterson, ScD
Nutrition: Biosocial and environmental determinants of intergenerational patterns of growth and metabolic syndrome risk in mothers and children, design and evaluation of population-based obesity interventions in low-income, multi-ethnic populations.

Emily Somers, PhD, ScM
Epidemiology of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and other autoimmune disease; ovarian preservation in patients exposed to alkylating agents

Adjunct Faculty

Niladri Basu, PhD
The objective of Dr. Basu's program is to research, develop and apply ecosystem-based approaches to address key problems in the environmental health sciences.

Michael R. Bleavins, PhD
Dr. Bleavins specializes in immunotoxicology, biomarkers, and translational medicine. He co-founded Michigan Technology & Research Institute utilizing his experience and expertise in development of biotechnology and small-molecule therapies.

Adam Finkel, ScD, CIH
Quantitative risk assessment and cost-benefit analysis of environmental and occupational health and safety regulations, with particular focus on decision-making in the face of uncertainty and interindividual variability in susceptibility, exposure, and public preferences.

Kelly Ferguson

Howard Hu, M.D., MPH, ScD
Environmental epidemiology, heavy metals, epigenetics, nutrient-toxicant interactions, and children's health.

Geoffrey Jacquez, PhD, MS
Life sciences and epidemiology

Dale Johnson, PharmD, PhD, DABT
Drug discovery and development, computational toxicology, first-time-in-human dose estimation, pharmacogenomics, green chemistry and toxicology, carcinogenicity

Galina Makhaeva

Alvaro R. Osornio-Vargas, M.D., PhD
Children's environmental health

Nicola Pirrone, PhD
Atmospheric modeling, mercury recycling

Pamela Spencer

Felipe Vadillo-Ortega, MD, PhD
Environmental health and perinatology.

Emeritus Faculty

Sergei Chernyak, PhD
Large-scale survey of organic contaminants in water, air, biota, and sediments from the Great Lakes, Arctic, and tropics. Ultra-sensitive methods for detecting persistent organic pollutants (POPs) in human samples. POPs in Great Lakes fish. Fate of emerging contaminants in midwestern U.S.

David H. Garabrant, MD, MPH
Occupational and environmental epidemiology, cancer epidemiology, neuroepidemiology and neurotoxic agents, colon cancer, pancreas cancer, environmental exposure to dioxins.

Richard Garrison, PhD, CIH, CSP
Ventilation to control atmospheric hazards for work in confined spaces, with applications of computational fluid dynamics to dilution ventilation, and experimental ventilation studies.

Robert H. Gray, PhD
Heavy metal toxicology and toxicological pathology

Craig Harris, PhD
Mammalian developmental toxicology and biochemical and molecular mechanisms of birth defects: Research objectives focus on chemical alteration of redox environment/signaling, embryonic nutrition, and their impact on epigenetic control of gene expression.

Rolf Hartung, PhD, DABT
Environmental Toxicology; risk analysis methods for human health and ecological risks.

Rita Loch-Caruso, PhD
Female reproductive toxicology, with a focus on environmental pollutant risks for normal and timely childbirth; development of human tissue culture methods for assessment of toxicant risks for parturition.

Khalil H. Mancy, PhD
Assessment and management of environmental health risks, water supply and sanitation, and waste water reuse applications

James E. Martin, PhD
Radiation protection and and assessment of public health impacts of radiation and radionuclides; landfill simulation studies of radioactive and hazardous wastes, radiotracers; radon assessment and mitigation.

Peter Meier, PhD
Impact of contaminants on the aquatic community; biogenic transport of contaminants; habitat and ecological assessment; biomonitoring and aquatic toxicity bioassays; interactions of the aquatic community with the air-water interface (microlayer).

Jerome Nriagu, PhD, DSc
Sources, fate and effects of toxic metals in the environment, environmental arsenic pollution and poisoning, water quality issues in the Great Lakes, history of lead poisoning, environmental justice and environmental health in developing countries.

Arthur Oleinick, MD, JD, MPH
Research: Factors that affect the duration of missed work-time following work injuries and medical utilization for such injuries. Teaching: occupational health law, including workers' compensation, workplace rights of the disabled, age, gender and race.

Rudy J. Richardson, ScD, DABT
Computational toxicology: cheminformatics; gene/protein pathways in toxicity and disease; ligand-receptor docking; molecular dynamics simulations; biomarkers of exposure, toxicity and disease; mechanisms of neurotoxicity and neurodegenerative diseases; exposure assessment.

James Vincent, PhD, DSc
Aerosol science, experimental fluid mechanics, air pollution control engineering, dust sampling and control in workplaces, exposure assessment, inhalation research, pharmacokinetic and dosimetric modeling for inhaled aerosols..

Edward T. Zellers, PhD
Lab-on-a-chip micro-analytical systems for real-time monitoring of complex mixtures of volatile organic compounds in air and biological media for occupational and environmental exposure assessment.