Center for Nanotechnology in Society

Universityof California, Santa Barbara

November 2007

 

PARTICIPANTS

 

Lee Dillard Adams

Deputy Director

Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) Central Regional Office

Adamsmanages permitting, inspection, and enforcement activities for air quality control; hazardous and solid waste management; industrial wastewater management; and toxics use reduction -- primarily with respect to industrial and commercial entities.  She is also responsible for Massachusetts’ oversight of the clean up and redevelopment of the former Ft. Devens Army base. 

Lee managed MassDEP’s project to develop streamlined operational environmental regulations for the biotech industry.  DEP’s biotech regulations, part of a larger initiative lead by the Executive Offices of Environmental Affairs and Economic Development in collaboration with the Mass Biotech Council, were promulgated in Fall 2005.

Richard P. Appelbaum

Executive Committee, NSF Center for Nanotechnology in Society

Professor of Sociology and Global & International Studies, UC Santa Barbara 

Richard P. Appelbaum is Professor of Sociology and Global and International Studies at the University of California at Santa Barbara. He is currently a Principal Investigator and member of the Executive Committee of the Center for Nanotechnology and Society and serves as Director of the M.A. program and Ph.D. emphasis in Global & International Studes. He received his B.A. from Columbia University, M.P.A. from Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. His books include States and Economic Development in the Asian Pacific Rim (with Jeffrey Henderson; Sage, 1992); Behind the Label: Inequality in the Los Angeles Garment Industry (with Edna Bonacich; University of California Press, 2000); Rules and Networks: The Legal Culture of Global Business Transactions (co-edited with William L.F. Felstiner and Volkmar Gessner; Oxford, England: Hart, 2001), and Towards a Critical Globalization Studies (co-edited with William I. Robinson, Routledge, 2005). He is currently engaged in a multi-disciplinary study of supply chain networks in the Asian-Pacific Rim, as well as the development of nanotechnology in China.

Claire Auplat

Postgraduate Researcher, Imperial College, United Kingdom

Claire Auplat is Agrégée de l’Université (National competitive examination at Post Master’s level) and she received a PhD in policy and institutions from Paris-Sorbonne University. She has held academic positions in the Grandes Ecoles system (France), London University (UK) and Rice University (US). She currently shares her time between Imperial College London and Sciences-Po Paris. She has worked closely with several multilateral organizations including the Commonwealth and the EU.

Dr. Auplat’s areas of interest cover institutional change, entrepreneurship and the development of nanotechnologies. Her research explores how the interactions between various stakeholders at the institutional and human levels affect entrepreneurship in the field of nanotechnology ventures.

Javiera Barandiaran

MPP Candidate

GoldmanSchoolof Public Policy, UC Berkeley

Javiera Barandiaran is a student of public policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley. Her interests include science, technology and research policy, and their interaction with higher education and social policy. Her work on nanotechnology has focused on its regulation, in particular the adequacy of information-based systems, for the management of risks. For Prof. Margaret Taylor, she coordinated a Roundtable on the Environmental Risks of Nanotechnology and is secretary of UC Berkeley's Nanotechnology Club.

Prior to coming to Berkeley, Javiera participated in the design and execution of several opinion surveys on attitudes towards science and technology in Europe.

Jeff Birkner

Vice President, Technical Services

Moldex-Metrix, Inc.

Jeff Birkner specializes in industrial hygiene, regulatory affairs and product liability evaluation.  His experience includes hazard assessment, environmental monitoring, emergency response, spill response, respirator program evaluation, and asbestos program management.  He has successfully managed quality assurance, technical service, and research and development programs.

Since 1988, he has managed his own environmental health and safety consulting practice, performing in-depth analysis of documentation and testimony of plantiffs alleging exposure to substances including asbestos, radiation, and other chemicals. 

As Vice President for Technical Services at Moldex Metric Inc., he provides in-house industrial hygiene and safety services, including the identification and abatement of areas containing asbestos containing materials, as well as advising customers on the use of safety products manufactured by Modex.

He earned a bachelor’s degree in biology and a master’s degree in environmental health science from NYU, and a Ph.D. in environmental health science from UCLA.  He is a certified industrial hygienist in comprehensive practice with the American Board of Industrial Hygiene.

Garrett Brown

Inspector, Cal OSHA

Coordinator, Maquiladora Health & Safety Support Network

Brown currently works as a compliance officer in the Oakland District Office of the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA). In his fourteen years with Cal/OSHA, Brown has conducted more than 500 inspections in Alameda County and as part of statewide teams inspecting California’s Central Valley agricultural fields and garment sweatshops in Los Angeles and Orange County.

Since 1993, Brown has served on volunteer basis as Coordinator of the Maquiladora Health and Safety Support Network (MHSSN), which includes more than 400 occupational health and safety professionals in Canada, Mexico and the United States. The Network provides information, technical assistance and Spanish-language trainings, all pro bono, to Mexican workers in maquiladoras on the U.S. border, as well as ongoing projects in Central America and Asia.

In October 2003, Brown was a guest co-editor of a special issue of the International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health on occupational safety and health in China. Another article on the impact of “lean manufacturing” production techniques on workplace safety in China will be published in the IJOEH in September 2007. In December 2004, Brown authored two major reports issued by the MHSSN on the failure of the NAFTA trade agreement to protect Mexican workers’ health, and what is needed in international trade and investment treaties to effectively protect workplace safety and health in the global economy. Brown has published articles on global occupational health and safety issues in the IJOEH, New Solutions, Multinational Monitor, Occupational Hazards, Social Justice, The Synergist, and the Industrial Safety and Hygiene News. has an undergraduate degree in U.S. history from the University of Chicago, a Master in Public Health degree from the University of California at Berkeley, and is a Certified Industrial Hygienist in comprehensive practice, as certified by the American Board of Industrial Hygiene.

Larry Busch

Professor of Sociology, Michigan State University

Prof. Busch directs the Institute for Food and Agricultural Standards and specializes in the sociology of food and agriculture.  His current research involves (1) the role of private sector Third Party Certification of food and agricultural products in both industrial and developing nations, and (2) the growing role of agrifood nanotechnologies in transforming food and agriculture globally.  Both projects are part of a series of studies of how grades and standards for food products are implicated in restructuring the social world including (re) distribution of income wealth, status, prestige and power.  In addition, Dr. Busch maintains his longstanding interest in agricultural biotechnologies and the standards governing the use of these technologies.

Vince Castranova

Chief, Pathology and Physiology Research Branch, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health

Vincent Castranova, Ph.D., is the Chief of the Pathology and Physiology Research Branch in the Health Effects Laboratory Division of the National Institute for Safety and Health, Morgantown, West Virginia.  He holds the grade of a CDC Distinguished Consultant.  He is also an adjunct professor in the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology and the Department of Basic Pharmaceutical Sciences at West Virginia University, Morgantown, West Virginia and the Department of Environmental and Occupational Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh.

Dr. Castranova received a B.S. in biology from Mount Saint Mary’s College, Emmitsburgh, Maryland in 1970, graduating magna cum laude.  He received a Ph.D. in physiology and biophysics in 1974 from West Virginia University, Morgantown, West Virginia before becoming an NIH fellow and research faculty member in the Department of Physiology at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut.  In 1977, Dr. Castranova received a research staff position at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health and an adjunct facility position at West Virginia University, Morgantown, West Virginia.  He has served at these institutions since that time.

Dr. Castranova’s research interests have concentrated in pulmonary toxicology and occupational health.  He has been coordinator of the Nanotoxicology Program in NIOSH since its inception.  He has been a co-editor of four books and has co-authored over 450 manuscripts and book chapters.

Brad Chmelka

Professor of Chemical Engineering, UC Santa Barbara 

Professor Chmelka graduated summa cum laude from Arizona State University in 1982 with a B.S. degree in Chemical Engineering. From 1982 to 1984 he worked as a startup engineer with Unocal Corporation at the Parachute Creek Shale Oil Project. He received his Ph.D. degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1990. Postdoctoral fellowship awards from the Division of Chemistry of NSF and from the NSF-NATO Program supported his postdoctoral research work in applications of NMR spectroscopy to inorganic and polymeric solids at Berkeley (1990) and at the Max-Plank-Institüt fur Polymerforschung in Mainz, Germany (1991). Dr. Chmelka joined the faculty at UCSB in 1992. His research is motivated by the need to understand at a molecular level the fabrication and functions of new catalysts, adsorbents, porous ceramics, and heterogeneous polymers. These broad categories of technologically important materials are linked by their crucial dependencies on local order/disorder, which often governs macroscopic process or device performance. We are broadly interested in heterogeneous solids, whose sizable variations in local ordering and dynamics have pronounced influences on the adsorption, reaction, optical, or mechanical properties of these materials. Through development and application of state-of-the-art techniques of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, they observe many common molecular features among these diverse systems, which provide new insights and design intuition for our materials chemistry and engineering objectives. His research group benefits from close collaborative research relationships with a number of industrial partners and foreign laboratories.

Joe Conti

Graduate Research Fellow, NSF Center for Nanotechnology in Society

Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Sociology, UC Santa Barbara

Prior to becoming a graduate fellow, Joe was already a familiar face at CNS-UCSB. He was among the researchers in the 2006 ICON-CNS study of nanotechnology in the workplace in which the team found that workplaces lack empirical data about environmental, health and safety practices of nanotechnologies. In addition to the CNS-UCSB graduate student fellowship, he has also received the NSF Doctoral Improvement Grant, the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation Dissertation Fellowship, and the Horowitz Foundation for Social Policy Dissertation Research Grant. As a sociologist, Joe is interested in globalization, U.S. foreign policy, sociology of law, research methods, and political sociology. He earned a master’s degree in sociology from UC Santa Barbara, and graduated magna cum laude from Regis University with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy.

Michael Darby

Professor of Policy, Director of the John M. Olin Center for Policy, UCLA

A recognized authority in macroeconomics and international finance, Michael Darby has achieved great success in both the academic and public sectors. From 1986 to 1992, Darby served in a number of senior positions in the Reagan and Bush administrations including Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy, Member of the National Commission on Superconductivity, Under Secretary of Commerce for Economic Affairs, and Administrator of the Economics and Statistics Administration. During his appointment, he received the Treasury’s highest honor, the Alexander Hamilton Award.

Dr. Darby is the widely-cited author of eight books and monographs and numerous other professional publications. His most recent research has examined the growth of the biotechnology industry in the United States and in California, and the role that universities and their faculties play in encouraging local economic development.Concurrently he holds appointments as chairman of The Dumbarton Group, research associate with the National Bureau of Economic Research, and adjunct scholar with the American Enterprise Institute. He is also director of UCLA’s John M. Olin Center for Public Policy, a position he has held since 1993. Previous to his Anderson School appointment in 1987, Darby held faculty positions or fellowships with UCLA’s department of economics, Stanford University, and Ohio State University. From his schooling to 1982, he also was vice president and director of Paragon Industries, Inc., a Dallas manufacturer of high-temperature kilns, furnaces, and refractories.

Joan Denton

2007 Conference Keynote Speaker 

Director, Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA), State of California

Member, California Green Chemistry Leadership Council

Joan Denton, Ph.D. has been the director of the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) since November, 1997.  She earned a bachelor's degree in zoology from the University of San Francisco in 1968 and a master's degree in biology from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas in 1973. She earned a Ph.D. in biology from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1979.

Dentonwas a senior air pollution specialist for the California Air Resources Board from 1987-1997. In this position, she has worked to plan and implement the various programs of the toxic air contaminant identification program and has managed the technical staff who develop reports on exposure to toxic air contaminants.  Previously, she was a research specialist for the Air Resources Board executive office, stationary source division and the research division.  Prior to that, Denton was a research associate for the Indiana University School of Medicine Laboratory for Experimental Oncology from 1979 to 1982.

Dentonhas received numerous awards and honors for her work, including: the Dill Scholarship Award in Biology; Outstanding Supervisory Performance Award, Air Resources Board (received twice); and Cal/EPA Certificates of Appreciation and Recognition. Denton is widely published in the area of toxics and air quality control.

The director of OEHHA is responsible for the performance of the scientific risk assessments for the regulation of chemicals in the environment, and for providing information about the health and environmental risks of chemicals to government agencies and the public. The director is also responsible for providing overall scientific guidance and consultation to the Secretary of the Environmental Protection Agency.  OEHHA also oversees the implementation of the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986.

Thomas K. Epprecht

Director, Swiss Reinsurance Company

Thomas K Epprecht earned his doctorate in biochemistry and is an expert on emerging risks in the Product Services Department at Swiss Re. He is the Director responsible for bio- and nanotechnology, and brings his expertise and consulting skills to bear in risk assessment and in defining and implementing strategies for these lines. He represents Swiss Re on various national and international expert bodies dealing with the business, social and political impacts of these young technologies. Thomas authored several Swiss Re publications and publishes regularily in journals and newspapers.

Before joining Swiss Reinsurance Company, Thomas was a researcher and lecturer at the Biochemistry department of Zurich University. During his subsequent time with two different planning and engineering enterprises, he provided expertise in environmental risks and industrial hazards of client companies.

Richard Freeman

Professor of Economics, Harvard University

Freeman holds the Herbert Ascherman Chair in Economics at Harvard University. He is currently serving as Faculty Director of the Labor and Worklife Program at the Harvard Law School. He is also director of the Labor Studies Program at the National Bureau of Economic Research, Senior Research Fellow in Labour Markets at the London School of Economics' Centre for Economic Performance, and visiting professor at the London School of Economics.

Professor Freeman is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of Sigma Xi. He has served on five panels of the National Academy of Sciences, including the Committee on National Needs for Biomedical and Behavioral Scientists. He has published over 300 articles dealing with a wide range of research interests including the job market for scientists and engineers; the growth and decline of unions; the effects of immigration and trade on inequality; restructuring European welfare states; Chinese labor markets; transitional economies; youth labor market problems; crime; self-organizing non-unions in the labor market; employee involvement programs; and income distribution and equity in the marketplace. He is currently directing the NBER / Sloan Science Engineering Workforce Project (with Daniel Goroff).

In addition, he has written or edited over 35 books, several of which have been translated into French, Spanish, Chinese and Japanese. Some of his books include: America Works: The Exceptional Labor Market (2007), What Workers Want? (2006, 1999), Seeking a Premiere League Economy (2004), Emerging Labor Market Institutions for the 21st Century (2004), Can Labor Standards Improve Under Globalization? w/ Kimberly Ann Elliott (2003), Inequality Around the World - IEA Conference Volume #134 (2002),Youth Employment and Joblessness in Advanced Countries (2000), The New Inequality: Creating Solutions for Poor America (New Democracy Forum Series) (1999), Generating Jobs: How to Increase Demand for Less-Skilled Workers (1998), The Welfare State in Transition: Reforming the Swedish Model (1997), Differences and Changes in Wage Structures (1995), Working Under Different Rules (1994), Small Differences that Matter: Labor Markets and Income Maintenance in Canada and the United States (1993), Immigration and the Work Force: Economic Consequences for the United States and Source Areas (1992), Immigration, Trade and the Labor Market (1991), and Labor Markets in Action: Essays in Empirical Economics (1989).

Bill Freudenburg

Professor of Environmental Studies and Sociology, UC Santa Barbara

Dr. Freudenburg, the 2004-05 President of the Rural Sociological Society, has devoted most of his career to the study of environment-society relationships. He is particularly well-known both for his work on coupled environment-society systems in general and for his work on more specific topics, including resource-dependent communities, the social impacts of environmental and technological change, and risk analysis. He has held official positions with the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Sociological Association, and the National Academy of Sciences, among others. He is the winner of Awards from the American Sociological Association, Rural Sociological Society, Pacific Sociological Association, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, as well as being listed in numerous reference works, including Who's Who in Science and Engineering, Who's Who in America, and Who's Who in the World. Recent and forthcoming publications have focused on topics ranging from the social impacts of U.S. oil dependence to the polarized nature of debates over spotted owls, with a special emphasis on “disproportionality,” or the tendency for a major fraction of all environmental impacts to be associated with a surprisingly small fraction of the overall economy.

John Froines

Professor of Environmental Health Sciences, UCLA

Professor Froines joined the faculty of the School of Public Health in 1981. He received a B.S. in chemistry from UC Berkeley (l963), a M.S. in chemistry (1964) and Ph.D. in physical-organic chemistry (1967) from Yale University. Before coming to the UCLA School of Public Health, Dr. Froines served as Director of Toxic Substances at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and Deputy Director of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Dr. Froines is currently the Director of the Center for Occupational and Environmental Health.  Dr. Froines also directs the Southern California Particle Center, the UCLA Fogarty Program in Occupational and Environmental Health, the UCLA segment of the Southern California Environmental Heatlh Sciences Center, and the Consortium on Asthma and Air Pollution. He chairs the State’s Scientific Review Panel which is responsible for identification of Toxic Air Contaminants.

Dr. Froines' area of expertise is Chemical Toxicology and Exposure Assessment. His research interests are in the qualitative and quantitative characterization of risk factors in occupational and environmental disease. His current focus is on mechanistic factors in the health effects associated with air pollution. Historically his research has included the toxicity of arsenic, chromium and lead.  He is currently developing a new effort in sustainable technology and green chemistry.

Barbara Herr Harthorn

Director, NSF Center for Nanotechnology in Society

Associate Professor, UC Santa Barbara, Departments of Feminist Studies and Anthropology

Professor Harthorn's research examines the social production of health inequality, and in particular looks at the intersections of gender, ethnicity/race, and transnational migration in health and health risk perception. Her current work examines technological risk perception among diverse US and comparative UK populations. She was a member of the Executive Committee of the National Science Foundation Center for Spatially Integrated Social Science and leads an international network on health risk perception and spatial analysis.  She has conducted research in East Africa, Polynesia, Melanesia, and urban and rural California. She is author (with Laury Oaks) of Risk, Culture, and Health Inequality: Shifting Perceptions of Danger and Blame (2003) and has published in many social science and public health journals.  She has a doctorate in medical anthropology and transcultural psychiatry from UCLA and a bachelor’s degree in anthropology from Bryn Mawr College; she also completed postdoctoral research in social psychology at UCSB.

Trish Holden

Professor of Environmental Microbiology, Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, UC Santa Barbara

Professor Harthorn's research examines the social production of health inequality, and in particular looks at the intersections of gender, ethnicity/race, and transnational migration in health and health risk perception. Her current work examines technological risk perception among diverse US and comparative UK populations. She was a member of the Executive Committee of the National Science Foundation Center for Spatially Integrated Social Science and leads an international network on health risk perception and spatial analysis.  She has conducted research in East Africa, Polynesia, Melanesia, and urban and rural California. She is author (with Laury Oaks) of Risk, Culture, and Health Inequality: Shifting Perceptions of Danger and Blame (2003) and has published in many social science and public health journals.  She has a doctorate in medical anthropology and transcultural psychiatry from UCLA and a bachelor’s degree in anthropology from Bryn Mawr College; she also completed postdoctoral research in social psychology at UCSB.  This year, Harthorn was named Fellow with the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Jackie Isaacs

Associate Director, Center for High-Rate Nano-Manufacturing, Northeastern University 

Dr. Jacqueline Isaacs is an Associate Director of the NSF-funded Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center for High-rate Nanomanufacturing (CHN) and an Associate Professor of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at Northeastern University. Dr. Isaacs has a B.S. in Metallurgical Engineering and Materials Science from Carnegie Mellon University and M.S and Ph.D. Degrees in Materials Science and Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Since joining Northeastern University, she has worked on assessing the economic, environmental and technological tradeoffs for existing and emerging technologies, and was awarded a National Science Foundation Career Award for her work. Her role in the CHN involves leading the societal implications research thrust team, whose research includes screening and monitoring of nanomaterials, applying life cycle assessment methods to manufacturing processes, assessing economic viability as well as the regulatory and social implications of emerging technologies. She is a Co-PI on an NSF Nanoscale Interdisciplinary Research Team award entitled: “Nanotechnology in the Public Interest: Regulatory Challenges, Capacity, and Policy Recommendations”. Dr. Isaacs has been an invited speaker to numerous workshops and forums on environmental health and safety issues related to nanomaterials, and serves as a liaison to the Boston Museum of Science NSF-funded Nanotechnology Informal Science Education Network (NISE-Net).

Nancy Jennerjohn

Ph.D. Student, Environmental Health Sciences

UCLA 

Nancy Jennerjohn is a doctoral student in UCLA’s Department of Environmental Health Sciences. Prior to coming to UCLA, Nancy spent over 5 years in research and development in the pulmonary drug delivery industry. Before that, she earned a Masters Degree in Physics at San Francisco State University. She also holds bachelors degrees in both physics and nursing. She is fascinated by aerosols, and her current research interests center around the lab-based generation of aerosols containing nanoparticles for characterization, and in the search for strategies that may prove effective at detecting airborne nanoparticles potentially escaping confinement in the nanotechnology manufacturing setting. She is especially interested in nanotubes as well as quantum dots. 

Nancy Lessin

Center for Safety, Health and Environmental Education

United Steelworkers 

Ms. Nancy Lessin is employed by the United Steelworkers' (USW’s) Tony Mazzocchi Center for Safety, Health and Environmental Education. She has worked in the field of occupational health and safety for twenty-eight years. Prior to her employment with the USW, she served as the Massachusetts AFL-CIO’s Health and Safety Coordinator, and before that as Senior Staff for Strategy and Policy for the Massachusetts Coalition for Occupational Safety and Health.  She has an MSc in Labor Studies from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. She currently serves on the AFL-CIO's Staff Subcommittee on Occupational Safety and Health, and on the Advisory Board for the Massachusetts Department of Public Health's Occupational Health Surveillance Program. She served for five years as a member of the National Advisory Committee on Occupational Safety and Health (NACOSH); and also served for five years on the NIOSH National Occupational Research Agenda "Organization of Work" Workgroup. She has presented programs on occupational safety and health issues for unions in the United States, Canada, Great Britain, Spain, the Netherlands, Brazil and Australia.

Sam Lipson

Director of Environmental Health, City of Cambridge, Massachusetts

Sam Lipson serves as the Director of Environmental Health for the Cambridge Public Health Department. In this capacity he has overseen the enforcement of the Cambridge Recombinant DNA Technology Ordinance since 1997. This local statute (c.1977) codifies the NIH Guidelines for Research Involving Recombinant DNA Molecules within the city of Cambridge, MA.

Responsibilities include administration of the Cambridge Biosafety Committee, a citizens panel with statutory authority to issue permits, and performance of all required laboratory inspections. Mr. Lipson has also worked closely with the biotech community to present the Cambridge Biosafety Forum in the fall of 2002. This 16-hour, 4-evening workshop drew on the deep pool of local biosafety experience in the Cambridge/Boston area. Mr. Lipson has been tasked by the Cambridge City Council to lead a review process and then make a recommendation on the establishment of a local nanomaterials oversight ordinance. This process will commence shortly and a formal policy recommendation with be forwarded in the fall of this year. Other biosafety related work has included participation in the NIH Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee (RAC) as an ad hoc panelist during a special session on IBCs; membership on the Boston Biosafety Advisory Committee to review changes in the 25 year-old language of the current regulation, and to examine the potential public health impact of the recently proposed, Biosafety Level 4 Biocontainment laboratory at the Boston University Medical Center. Mr. Lipson has also consulted with researchers and public health officials interested in drafting and implementing local biosafety regulations in Seattle, San Francisco, Tokyo, and several smaller communities across Massachusetts. Mr. Lipson received his undergraduate degree from University of California at Berkeley and completed his Masters work in Toxicology at the University of Massachusetts at Boston. His biosafety training continued with a 40-hour Biohazard Control course offered by John Hopkins University and the Eagleson Institute’s 8-hour Viral Vectors workshop.

Gerald Markowitz

Professor of History

John Jay Collegeof Criminal Justice

Graduate Center, City University of New York 

Prof. Markowitz is author of eleven books, including Are We Ready? Public Health Since 9/11 (with David Rosner) (Berkeley: University of California Press/ Milbank Memorial Fund, 2006). Deadly Dust: Silicosis and the On-Going Struggle to Protect Workers' Health (New and Expanded edition) (with David Rosner) (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2006). Deceit and Denial: The Deadly Politics of Industrial Pollution (University of California Press, 2002), (with David Rosner) and Dying for Work: Workers’ Safety and Health in Twentieth Century America (Indiana University Press, 1987) and Slaves of Depression: Workers Letters About Life on the Job (Cornell University Press, 1987).

Prof. Markowitz has also published extensively in academic journals and has delivered conference lectures for the American Association for the History of Medicine, the American Public Health Association, the American Society of Environmental History and other professional societies. In 2000, Prof. Markowitz was honored by the American Public Health Association's Medical Care Section with the Viseltear Prize for "Outstanding Contributions to the History of Public Health." In 2006 he was honored by the New York Committee on Occupational Safety and Health Award for “Outstanding Scholarship Exposing the Deadly Politics of Industrial Pollution.” In 2005 he was honored by the American Industrial Hygiene Association, Social Concerns Committee, “For Outstanding Health, Safety, and Environmental Investigative Journalism.”He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin.

Frank Mirer

Professor of Environmental and Occupational Health 

HunterCollege, City University of New York 

Franklin E. Mirer is a toxicologist and certified industrial hygienist.  His primary scientific interest is exposure and risk assessment in the occupational environment and regulatory policy. 

Dr. Mirer is Professor of Environmental and Occupational Health at Hunter College. Previously he served as Director of the UAW Health and Safety Department.. Dr. Mirer participated in each round of automobile industry collective bargaining since 1976.Dr. Mirer received a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Harvard University in 1972, and trained further as a Research Fellow in Toxicology at the Harvard School of Public Health.  He joined the UAW staff in 1975.Dr. Mirer serves on the NAS Committee to Review NIOSH Research Programs. Previously, he served on the NIOSH National Occupational Health Research Agenda liaison committee, the OSHA Metalworking Fluid Standards Advisory Committee, the Institute of Medicine Roundtable on Environmental Health Sciences Research and Training, the National Academy of Sciences Committees on Institutional Means for Risk Assessment, the Board of Scientific Counselors of the National Toxicology Program, an IARC Working Group, the CDC Injury Advisory Committee and the NIH Safety and Occupational Health Study Section.
Dr. Mirer developed and delivered testimony before OSHA regarding a dozen health and safety standards, and has testified before House and Senate Committees on occupational safety and health and regulatory policy matters.  He has co-authored scientific papers in exposure assessment, risk assessment and epidemiology.

Dr. Mirer was inducted into the National Safety Council’s Health and Safety Hall of Fame, and is a Fellow of the Collegium Ramazzini and the American Industrial Hygiene Association.

John Monica

Partner

Porter Wright Morris & Arthur LLP 

Mr. Monica has considerable litigation experience in defending national and international products liability claims for Fortune 500 companies. He is a nationally recognized authority on nanotechnology product liability issues. As a member of ANSI and ASTM, Mr. Monica participates in the development of voluntary international nomenclature and EHS standards for the nanotechnology industry. Additionally, he has successfully represented numerous clients in commercial litigation matters in state and federal courts.

Andre Nel

Professor of Medicine

Chief, Division of NanoMedicine, UCLA

André Nel is a Professor of Medicine and Chief of the Division of NanoMedicine at UCLA.  He runs the Cellular Immunology Activation Laboratory in the Johnson Cancer Center and the Laboratory for Nanosafety Research and Testing in the California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI) at UCLA. 

Dr. Nel’s chief research interests are: (i) Nanomedicine and Nanobiology, including nanomaterial properties that may assist nanomaterial safety testing; (ii) The role of air pollutants in asthma, with particular emphasis on the role of oxidative stress in the generation of airway inflammation and airway hyperreactivity.  These studies are funded by personal RO1 grants from the NIH, the NIAD-funded Asthma and Immunology Disease Clinical Research Center, an EPA STAR award, and a UC Lead Campus Program for Nanotoxicology Research. Dr Nel is the Principal Investigator of the UCLA Asthma and Immunology Disease Center, Co-Director of the Southern California Particle Center and Director of the UC Lead Campus Program for Nanotoxicology Research and Training. 

Dr. Nel obtained his M.B., Ch.B. (MD) and Doctorate of Medicine (PhD equivalent) degrees from the University of Stellenbosch in Cape Town, South Africa, and subsequently did Clinical Immunology and Allergy training at UCLA.  Dr Nel served a Chair of a study section at the NIAID and is Chair of the Air Pollution Committee in the AAAAI. Dr. Nel is a member of the ASCI, AAAAI, AAI and the Western Association of Physicians.

Jackie Nowell

Director, Occupational Health and Safety Office

United Food and Commercial Workers

Jackie Nowell, MPH, CIH is Director of the Occupational Safety and Health Office, Collective Bargaining Department, United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW) in Washington, DC.  She joined the UFCW, 1990.A Certified Industrial Hygienist, Jackie earned her MPH at the University of California, Los Angeles.  She Previously served as Assistant Professor of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Division at Hunter College, CUNY; and as Staff Industrial Hygienist, New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health, a coalition of labor unions that provides technical assistance and training on occupational safety and health to member local unions.

The UFCW has been an important player in the fight for the recognition and control of musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs).   Jackie has been involved in the development and monitoring of the major ergonomic programs in the red meat and poultry industries.

Michele Ostraat

Principal Investigator & NOSH Consortium Technical Leader

DuPont Engineering Research and Technology

Michele Ostraat joined DuPont in 2003 in the DuPont Engineering Research and Technology group at the Experimental Station in Wilmington, Delaware with primary responsibilities in the aerosol synthesis and characterization of sub-micron and nanoparticles for a variety of applications.  In 2004, she drafted initial proposals on nanoparticle occupational safety and health that have formed the basis for the Nanoparticle Occupational Safety and Health (NOSH) Consortium.

Prior to joining DuPont, Michele was a Member of Technical Staff at Bell Labs and Agere Systems where she examined the synthesis of rare-earth doped aerosol nanoparticles and investigated the behavior of chalcogenide phase change materials.  Michele earned her Ph.D. (2001) and M.S. (1998) degrees in Chemical Engineering from the California Institute of Technology with her Ph.D. thesis entitled “Synthesis and Characterization of Aerosol Silicon Nanoparticle Nonvolatile Floating Gate Memory Devices” and her M.S. thesis entitled “Production and Characterization of a Two-Dimensionally Ordered Monolayer of Uniformly-Sized Spherical Silicon Nanocrystals.”  She holds a B.S. Chemistry degree from Trinity University.  She has participated in several research programs, including the Hughes Summer Program at the University of New Mexico, the SMART Program at Baylor College of Medicine, and has interned at Sandia National Laboratories.

Michele has authored 10 research publications in the areas of aerosol nanoparticle synthesis, characterization, and electrical properties, holds 3 patents, and has given over 20 conference presentations within the U.S. and Europe, including 6 invited talks.  She is active in a number of professional organizations, including Materials Research Society, American Association for Aerosol Research, and the American Institute of Chemical Engineers.  Her awards include a Materials Research Society Graduate Student Gold Medal and a National Science Foundation Graduate Student Fellowship, as well as being a member of Phi Beta Kappa and a Trinity University Murchison scholar.

Jaideep Raje

Analyst, Lux Research, Inc. 

As an Analyst at Lux Research, Jaideep conducts interviews with senior executives, entrepreneurs, and decision-makers at the vanguard of the nanotechnology field as well as monitoring global nanotech innovation through secondary research. His research and analysis aid the strategic efforts of Lux Research clients.

Jaideep joined the Lux Research team after working on cutting-edge nanotechnology problems at the University ofCalifornia, Santa Barbara (UCSB), where he was involved with research in molecular engineering of nanomaterials for biotechnology applications. During his stint at UCSB, he also acquired a Certificate in Technology Management under UCSB’s Graduate Program in Management Practice.

Jaideep holds a M.S. in Chemical Engineering from UCSB and a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the Institute of Chemical Technology, University of Mumbai (formerly known as U.D.C.T., Mumbai).

Kevin Rowan

Regional Secretary, Northern British Trades Union Congress 

Kevin Rowan is Regional Secretary of the Northern TUC, representing some 69 trade unions and half a million trade union members in the north of England.

He began working life in the VSEL shipyard of Barrow in Furness, very soon becoming a trade union representative.

In July 1997, Kevin joined GMB Northern as Education and Research Officer, eventually becoming Regional Secretary of the Northern TUC.  Kevin is one of the region's skills for life champions and a member of the regional skills partnership.  He played a role as a member of the regional worklessness strategic group and is now a member of Newcastle Futures and a council member for the RDA on Northumberland LSC.

Kevin is chair of Equality North East, an organisation dedicated to tackling inequality and discrimination in the region, and is a member of the NE Equality and Diversity Board, the LSC Equality and Diversity Steering Group and represents the TUC on the smoke free north east advisory board.

Kevin is delighted the Agency is playing such an important role in the areas of employability and economic inclusion agenda across the region.

Paul Schulte

Coordinator, NIOSH Nanotechnology Research Center

Paul Schulte, Ph.D., is the coordinator of the NIOSH Nanotechnology Research Center (NTRC) and the Director of the Education and Information Division (EID).  Dr. Schulte has over 35 years experience in particle and fiber research and control.  He was responsible for NIOSH criteria documents on fibrous glass, refractive ceramic fibers, and coal dust.  He participated in research on various respiratory hazards including asphalt, formaldehyde, tuberculosis, and anthrax and coordinated documents dealing with lung cancer.  He presented the Colt lecture for the International Inhaled Particles Symposium in 1996 and served as the Co-Chair of the International Agency for Research on Cancer Workshop on Mechanisms of Fibre Carcinogenesis and Assessment of Chrysotile Asbestos Substitutes.

John Trumpbour

Research Director, Labor and Worklife Program, Harvard University 

John Trumpbour is the research director of the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School. He studied history at Stanford University and received a Ph.D. from Harvard University. He is a staff member of the Science and Engineering Workforce Project at the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Trumpbour is the editor of The Dividing Rhine: Politics and Society in Contemporary France and Germany and the author of Selling Hollywood to the World: U.S. and European Struggles for Mastery of the Global Film Industry, 1920–1950. He cowrote an essay on Latino workers for the book Latinos: Remaking America (2002). In 2007 he served as guest editor of The Comparative Labor Law & Policy Journal for its special issue "The Crisis in Workplace Governance." 

David Weil

Professor of Economics, Boston University

Co-Director, Transparency Policy Project, Harvard University Kennedy School of Government

David Weil is Professor of Economics and Everett W. Lord Distinguished Faculty Scholar at Boston University School of Management and co-Director of the Transparency Policy Project at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.  His research spans regulatory and labor market policy, industrial and labor relations, occupational safety and health and transparency policy.  His research in this area has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health.  He has written three books, including the recently released Full Disclosure: The Perils and Promise of Transparency (Cambridge University Press, 2007) and the award-winning Stitch in Time: Lean Retailing and the Transformation of Manufacturing (Oxford University Press, 1999) as well as over 75 scholarly and popular articles and publications.  Professor Weil has served as an advisor to the U.S. Department of Labor, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and a number of other government agencies as well as a mediator and advisor in a variety of labor union and labor / management settings in the U.S., Canada, United Kingdom, and Australia.

Vivian Weil

Director, Center for Study of Ethics in the Professions, Illinois Institute of Technology

Vivian Weil is a fellow of several organizations, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Governing Board of the National Institute for Engineering Ethics, and the Executive Committee of the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics. In addition, she serves on the editorial boards of Teaching Philosophy; Professional Ethics; Science and Engineering Ethics; and Science Communication (formerly Knowledge). Working on theoretical problems of human action and responsibility, and specializing in issues of professional responsibility, primarily in engineering and science, Weil is co-editor of Owning Scientific and Technical Information: Ethics and Value Issues, and editor of Beyond Whistleblowing: Defining Engineers' Responsibilities and Trying Times: Science and Responsibilities after Daubert. She is also currently the principle investigator on a NSF-funded research and writing project, Software Engineers Acquire a Code of Ethics, studying the beginnings of professionalization of software developers, and an NSF-funded project on ethics research in a large nanotechnology facility at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Jim Willis

Division Director, Chemical Control Division of the Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxic Substances, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Since October 2004, Jim Willis has been Director the Chemical Control Division (CCD) in EPA’s Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics (OPPT).  CCD is responsible for the implementation of EPA’s new and existing chemicals programs, the chemical testing program, and special projects such as the Nanoscale Materials Stewardship Program, the HPV Challenge and the PFOA Stewardship program.  Jim co-chaired EPA’s nanotechnology white paper development and, since 2006, has chaired the OECD Working Party on Manufactured Nanomaterials.  Prior to his return to EPA, he was Director of Chemicals for the United Nations Environment Programme, a position he held since November, 1995, where he also facilitated the negotiations of, and served as Executive Secretary of the Rotterdam Convention on Prior Informed Consent and the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants.  He also directed UNEP’s mercury program, its chemical safety capacity building program, and its efforts to develop a “Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management”.  Jim joined EPA in 1984 and served in a variety of staff and management roles in OPPT before transferring to UNEP.

Lynne Zucker

Professor of Sociology, UCLA

Professor Zucker serves as director of the Center for International Science, Technology, and Cultural Policy at UCLA, research associate with the National Bureau of Economic Research, and consulting sociologist with the American Institute of Physics.

Prior to UCLA, she served as visiting faculty with Harvard University’s Program in Organizational Behavior and the University of Chicago’s Department of Sociology, fellow with Yale University’s Program on Non-Profit Organizations, lecturer with San Francisco State University’s Department of Sociology and instructor with Stanford University’s Department of Sociology.  Additionally, she has served as an economist with the IRS, member of the National Academy of Sciences / National Research Council’s Committee on Evaluation of Employment and Training Programs, and U.S. representative for organizational data to the British Economic and Social Research Council and National Science Foundation Joint Committee on Comparative Binational Data.

 

She has authored seven books and monographs, numerous journals and other articles on organizational theory, analysis, and evaluation, institutional structure, civil service, government spending & services, unionization, science and its commercialization, and permanently failing organizations.

Her research areas include economic sociology, organizational behavior, institutional theory, and social psychology.

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