Linda S. Birnbaum, Ph.D., D.A.B.T., A.T.S. is the former Director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) of the National Institutes of Health, and the National Toxicology Program (NTP). As a retiree, she was granted scientist emeritus status. As a board-certified toxicologist, Birnbaum served as a federal scientist for 40 years. Prior to her appointment as NIEHS and NTP Director in 2009, she spent 19 years at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), where she directed the largest division focusing on environmental health research. Dr. Birnbaum has received many awards and recognitions. In 2016, she was awarded the North Carolina Award in Science. She was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies, one of the highest honors in the fields of medicine and health. She was also elected to the Collegium Ramazzini, an independent, international academy comprised of internationally renowned experts in the fields of occupational and environmental health and received an honorary Doctor of Science from the University of Rochester and a Distinguished Alumna Award from the University of Illinois. She also received an Honorary Doctorate from Ben-Gurion University, Israel and Amity University, India; the Surgeon General’s Medallion 2014; and 14 Scientific and Technological Achievement Awards, which reflect the recommendations of EPA’s external Science Advisory Board, for specific publications.
A physician and epidemiologist, is Professor Emeritus of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences at the University of Washington. Previously he was head of the Our Plant, Our Health initiative at the Wellcome Trust in London (2018-19), Dean of the University of Washington School of Public Health (2010-16), Director of the National Center for Environmental Health at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2005-10), and Professor and Chair of Environmental and Occupational Health at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health (1990-2005). His research interests include health aspects of the built environment, climate change, energy policy, nature contact, and sustainability. He has served on numerous boards and advisory committees. He is the author or co-author of over 200 scientific journal articles and chapters, and his nine books include Making Healthy Places: Designing and Building for Health, Well-Being, and Sustainability (Island Press, 2011), Environmental Health: From Global to Local (Jossey-Bass, 3 rd Edition 2016), and Planetary Health: Protecting Nature to Protect Ourselves (Island Press, 2020). He received his A.B. from Brown University, his M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, his M.P.H. and Dr.P.H. from Harvard University.
Dr. Francine Laden is Professor of Environmental Epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and an Associate Professor of Medicine at the Harvard Medical School and the Brigham & Women’s Hospital. Dr. Laden received her ScD in Epidemiology and MS in Environmental Health from the Harvard School of Public Health. Her research interests focus on the environmental epidemiology of chronic diseases, including cancer, respiratory and cardiovascular disease. Her research has or is concentrated on the following categories of exposures: air pollution (from ambient and occupational sources), persistent organic pollutants (POPs; organochlorines), secondhand smoke, and the contextual environment (e.g. built environment and green spaces). She is specifically interested in the geographic distribution of disease risk, incorporating geographic information system technology into large cohort studies to explore risk factors such as the built environment and indicators of socioeconomic status, as well as air pollution. She has published key papers on the association of ambient particulate matter and all cause and cardiovascular mortality in the landmark Harvard Six Cities Study and the Nurses’ Health Study and on the association of diesel exhaust exposures and lung cancer mortality in the trucking industry. She is currently Co-Director of the Harvard and Boston University Environmental Disparities Center: Center for Research on Environmental and Social Stressors in Housing Across the Life Course (CRESSH). The mission of the Center is to study environmental health disparities in low-income communities and throughout Massachusetts. Dr. Laden is a past member of the EPA Science Advisory Board, Past President of the International Society of Environmental Epidemiology, and the Associate Chair of the Department of Environmental Health at the Harvard Chan School.
Biographical Notes: Professor George Morris BSc (Hons), PhD, FREHIS, FFPH George Morris is Honorary Visiting Professor in the University of Exeter Medical School. He contributes as a Board Member and active researcher at Exeter University’s European Centre for Environment and Human Health. Over a long career, George has worked in local government; at the Universities of Glasgow and Strathclyde; as an NHS Scotland Consultant in Environment and Health; and as a Scientific Policy Adviser to Scotland’s Chief Medical Officer. He regularly serves as a World Health Organisation adviser on aspects of environment and human health and continues to work with a variety of national and international organisations. He continues to publish widely in peer-reviewed journals, is a chapter author in several textbooks and a contributor and editor for the Oxford University Online Journal of Environmental Science.
Professor Paolo Vineis is a leading researcher in the fields of molecular epidemiology and NCDs. He is Chair of Environmental Epidemiology at Imperial College, London. His latest research activities focus on investigating biomarkers from omic platforms (including metabolomics and epigenetics) in large epidemiological studies. He has more than 990 publications (many as leading author) in journals such as Nature, Science, Lancet, Lancet Oncology. He is a member of various international scientific and ethics committees (including the Committee of the US National Academy of Sciences on 21 st Century Risk Assessment) and vice-chair of the Ethics Committee at the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC,WHO). Professor Vineis has extensive experience in leading international projects. He has coordinating the European Commission FP7-funded Exposomics project and the Horizon 2020- funded project Lifepath. He is the director of the Unit of Molecular and Genetic Epidemiology, Italian Institute for Genomic Medicine, Torino, Italy and leads the Exposome and Health theme of the MRC- PHE Centre for Environment and Health at Imperial College. He has published several books including “Health without borders: epidemics in the era of globalization”. Springer, 2017. He is engaged in policy-making as Vice-President of the High Council of Health (Consiglio Superiore di Sanita’, advisor to the Health Minister) in Italy, and as a member of Cancer Prevention Europe (affiliated with Cancer Mission Europe).