a research, education, and outreach program committed to fostering environments where all people can prosper
Collaborators and Partners
Allison Ashley-Koch, PhD
, Associate Professor, Section of Medical Genetics
Allison Ashley-Koch, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the Section of Medical Genetics, Department of Medicine at Duke University Medical Center. Her research focuses on the genetic epidemiology of Mendelian and complex genetic disorders. Dr. Ashley-Koch's primary interest is the genetics of psychiatric disorders, including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, autism, and trichotillomania. She is also performing studies to identify genes involved in and essential tremor, as well as genes that modify the clinical severity of sickle cell disease. Dr. Ashley-Koch served the Center for Human Genetics as a post-doctoral fellow and research associate from 1998 to 2000.
For more information, visit Dr. Ashley-Koch's webpage.
Richard Auten, M.D.
, Associate Professor of Pediatrics
Dr. Auten is Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Duke University Medical Center, and Co-Director of the Southern Center for Environmentally Driven Disparities in Birth Outcomes. His research is focused on environmental inflammatory and oxidative mechanisms for disrupted pre- and postnatal human development.
For more information, visit Dr. Auten's webpage.
Lori Bennear, Ph.D.
, Assistant Professor of Environmental Economics and Policy
For more information, visit Lori Bennear's webpage.
Gary Bennett, Ph.D.
, Associate Professor of Psychology, Global Health, and Medicine
For more information, visit Gary Bennett's webpage.
Lane Burgette
, Associate Statistician
Lane F. Burgette is a a member of the statistics group at the RAND Corporation in the Washington, DC office. Previously, he was a postdoctoral research associate in the Department of Statistical Science at Duke University. Lane completed his PhD in Statistics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison during the summer of 2009. Prior to that, he studied mathematics at Whitman College. At CEHI, Lane has focused on latent variable and quantile regression models for adverse birth outcomes and flexible strategies for imputing missing data. More information on Lane's research is available at http://www.burgette.org/research.html.
Robert M. Califf, M.D.
, Vice chancellor of Clinical and Translational Research
Rob Califf is vice chancellor for clinical research and professor of medicine in the Division of Cardiology at Duke. Former director of the Duke Clinical Research Institute, he became head of the Duke Translational Medicine Institute in 2006.
For more information, visit Rob Califf's webpage.
Howard Chang
, Research Associate
Howard H. Chang is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Statistical and Applied Mathematical Sciences Institute (SAMSI). He is also affiliated with the Department of Statistical Science at Duke University. Howard received his Ph.D. in Biostatistics in 2009 from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. At CEHI, Howard is interested in quantifying the health effects of air pollution on adverse birth outcomes.
Dennis A. Clements, MD, PhD, MPH
, Chief, Primary Care Pediatrics
Dr. Dennis A. Clements is a professor of pediatrics, community and family medicine and medicine at Duke University Medical Center. He is also an adjunct professor of epidemiology at the University of North Carolina School of Public Health in Chapel Hill, NC.
For more information, visit Dr. Clements' bio page.
Richard T. Di Giulio, Ph.D.
, Professor of Environmental Toxicology
Professor of Environmental Toxicology and Director, Superfund Basic Research Center; Director, Integrated Toxicology Program
For more information, visit Dr. Di Giulio's webpage.
Lee Ferguson, Ph.D.
, Associate Professor of Engineering
Pratt School of Engineering. His laboratory's research centers around the application of high-performance mass spectrometry techniques to problems in environmental toxicology and chemistry. Active areas of investigation include development of methods for broadband qualitative and quantitative analysis of polar organic contaminants in the environment, as well as the use of proteome analysis techniques for investigating mechanisms and biomarkers of chemical stress in aquatic organisms.
For more information, visit Lee Ferguson's webpage.
Jeffrey M. Ferranti, M.D., M.S.
, Pediatrics / Neonatology
For more information, visit Dr. Ferranti's webpage.
Michael Foster, Ph.D.
, Professor in Medicine
Research Professor, Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Department of Medicine Director, Inhalation Toxicology CCBVP Facility Core
Dr. Foster's area of research interest and expertise is in the study of environmental air pollutants and their influence on the respiratory system. His laboratory evaluates injury and repair of respiratory tissues in both laboratory animal models and human subjects. Present awards support investigations of the relationship between host (genetic) factors and tissue susceptibility to responsiveness and injury.
For more information, visit Dr. Foster's webpage.
Vance Fowler Jr., M.D., MHS
, Associate Professor, Department of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases
For more information, visit Vance Fowler's webpage.
Rebecca Fry, Ph.D.
, Assistant Professor, Environmental Sciences and Engineering, UNC
For more information, visit Rebecca Fry's webpage.
Alan Gelfand, Ph.D.
, James B Duke Professor of Statistical Science and Professor of Environmental Sciences and Policy
Dr. Alan Gelfand is the J.B. Duke Professor of Statistical Science and Chair of the Department of Statistical Sciences at Duke University. Dr. Gelfand's current research interests include spatial statistics, modeling and model determination, Bayesian computation, and Bayes and empirical Bayes inference.
For more information, visit Dr. Gelfand's bio page.
Christina Gibson-Davis, Ph.D.
, Assistant Professor of Public Policy, Sociology, and Psychology and Neuroscience
Dr. Christina Gibson-Davis is the Assistant Professor of Public Policy Studies in the Center for Child and Family Policy at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University. Her research focuses on the evaluation of effects of anti-poverty programs and the effects of poverty and welfare on the well-being of children and families.
For more information, visit Dr. Gibson-Davis' bio page.
Jonathan Goodall, Ph.D.
, Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Dr. Jon Goodall is an Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of South Carolina. Dr. Goodall's primary research interest is in the management of water resources at the river basin scale, in particular the design of new computational and informatics tools needed to integrate spatiotemporal hydrologic data and models. His work has a broad range of applications from flooding to water quality to environmental health.
For more information, visit Dr. Goodall's webpage.
Kathleen M. Gray, M.S.P.H.
, Director, Environmental Resource Program
Ms. Kathleen M. Gray, associate director for outreach and public service in the UNC Institute for the Environment, directs the Environmental Resource Program (ERP), a public service unit that conducts K-12 teacher professional development, provides research and technical assistance to community groups, non-profits and government agencies, and facilitates experiential education for undergraduates. She also directs the outreach and research translation efforts of two federally-funded research centers in UNC's School of Public Health. Ms. Gray has over 15 years experience conducting environmental health education with community audiences and assisting businesses and government agencies in making sustainable choices. Ms. Gray serves on the boards of two statewide environmental nonprofits - the NC Conservation Network and Earth Share of NC. Prior to joining UNC, she led an assessment of NC's recycling industry for the Division of Pollution Prevention in the NC Department of Environment and Natural Resources, advised over 300 businesses in expanding their use of environmentally responsible products and services for Green Seal, assisted EPA's voluntary environmental programs in developing and evaluating educational materials, and led a community-focused environmental health program at Vanderbilt University. Ms. Gray earned an MSPH in Environmental Sciences and Engineering from UNC-Chapel Hill and a BS in Mathematics from Vanderbilt University.
For more information, visit Kathleen M. Gray's webpage.
Simone Gray
, Postdoctoral Fellow
Simone Gray is a postdoctoral fellow with the US Environmental Protection Agency. Simone received her Ph.D. in Statistics from Duke University in May 2010. In her current role at USEPA, she will be working on ways to apply and interpret nationally available databases and other tools to estimate human exposures and cumulative risks in communities. Her research interests involve environmental modeling techniques to address issues that impact disadvantaged and/or vulnerable populations, including minorities and children.
David E. Hinton, Ph.D.
, Nicholas Professor of Environmental Quality
For more information, visit Dr. Hinton's webpage.
Sherman A. James, Ph.D.
, Susan B. King Professor of Public Policy and Professor of Sociology
Sherman A. James is the Susan B. King Professor of Public Policy Studies in the Sanford School of Public Policy, Duke University. Prior to joining Duke University, he taught in the Epidemiology departments at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill (1973-89) and at the University of Michigan (1989-03). At Michigan, he was the John P. Kirscht Collegiate Professor of Public Health, the Founding Director (1998-2003) of the Center for Research on Ethnicity, Culture and Health (CRECH), Chairman (1999-2003) of the Department of Health Behavior and Health Education, and a Senior Research Scientist in the Survey Research Center at the Institute for Social Research. As a Social Epidemiologist, Dr. James' research focuses on racial and ethnic inequalities in health status, and health care, and community-based and public policy interventions designed to minimize, and ultimately eliminate, these inequalities.
Dr. James was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences in 2000. In 2001, he received the Abraham Lilienfeld Award from the Epidemiology section of the American Public Health Association for career excellence in the teaching of epidemiology. He is a fellow of the American Epidemiological Society, the American College of Epidemiology, the American Heart Association, and the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research. Dr. James is a former Associate Editor of Ethnicity and Disease, and the American Journal of Public Health. He is the 2007-2008 president of the Society for Epidemiologic Research. Dr. James received his PhD (Social Psychology) from Washington University, in St. Louis (1973).
For more information, visit Dr. James' bio page.
Dohyeong Kim, Ph.D.
, Associate Professor of Public Administration and Policy
Dohyeong Kim, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Public Administration and Policy at the North Carolina Central University. His collaborative research with CEHI includes statistical, economic, spatial, and decision-analytic approaches to address a variety of environmental and health concerns both in the US and internationally. Dr Kim's work has been widely circulated in peer-reviewed journals and other scholarly publications, such as Value in Health, Health Policy and Planning, Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy, and Environmental Health Perspective.
For more information, visit Dr. Kim's faculty webpage.
Randall A. Kramer, Ph.D.
, Professor of Resource & Environmental Economics and Associate Director for Strategy, Duke Global Health Institute
Kramer's experience lies in the role of economics in environmental policy and management, focusing on improving our understanding of how human and business behavior is shaped by policies intended to protect the environment.
For more information, visit Randy Kramer's faculty webpage.
Edward Levin, Ph.D.
, Professor, Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, School of Medicine
Dr. Levin is Chief of the Neurobehavioral Research Lab in the Psychiatry Department of Duke University Medical Center. His primary academic appointment is as Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. He also has secondary appointments in the Department of Pharmacology and Cancer Biology, the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences and the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke. His primary research effort is to understand basic neural interactions underlying cognitive function and addiction and to apply this knowledge to better understand cognitive dysfunction and addiction disorders and to develop novel therapeutic treatments.
For more information, visit Dr. Levin's faculty webpage.
Elwood Linney, Ph.D.
, Professor, Depts. of Microbiology and Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences
For more information, visit Dr. Linney's webpage.
David R. McClay, Ph.D.
, Professor, Department of Biology
For more information, visit Dr. McClay's webpage.
Lynne C. Messer, Ph.D, M.P.H.
, Assistant Professor
Lynne C. Messer is a social and reproductive / perinatal epidemiologist whose work focuses developing environmental and neighborhood measures to address maternal and child health disparities. She earned her Ph.D. from the Department of Epidemiology and her M.P.H. from the Department of Health Behavior and Health Education at the University of North Carolina.
She is an assistant professor in the School of Community Health, College of Urban and Public Affairs, at Portland State University.
Joel Meyer, Ph.D.
, Assistant Professor of Environmental Toxicology
For more information, visit Joel Meyer's webpage.
Phil Morgan, Ph. D.
, Norb F. Schaefer Professor of International Studies
Dr. Phil Morgan is Professor of Sociology at Duke University. His research focuses on human fertility. More specifically he asks: what factors explain variation in fertility across populations? A mainstream sociological perspective guides his research. This perspective focuses attention on group-specific structural and cultural factors, such as differences in the nature of patriarchy, or variation in educational and economic institutions. Statistical and demographic techniques, new or unusual data, and particular research opportunities frequently provide leverage, that is, the power to answer key questions convincingly. Leverage plays a key role in his choice of particular research questions and projects.
For more information, visit Dr. Morgan's bio page.
Joseph R. Nevins, Ph.D.
, Barbara Levine Professor of Breast Cancer Genomics
Dr. Joseph Nevins is Barbara Levine Professor of Breast Cancer Genomics. His research focuses on the gene regulatory events associated with the control of cellular proliferation and cell fate, including the dysregulation that contributes to oncogenesis. This work has specifically focused on the retinoblastoma tumor suppressor (Rb) and the role of this protein in controlling the E2F transcription factor activities. Additionally, work in the Nevins lab has focused on the interplay of cellular signaling pathways that in combination control cell proliferation including the role of Ras, Myc, and other activities. Finally, a major component of the effort in the lab focuses on the use of genome-scale measures of gene expression, employing DNA microarrays, to identify expression profiles that characterize oncogenic pathways and that define tumor phenotypes of importance in determining clinical outcomes.
For more information, visit Dr. Nevins' webpage.
Alicia Overstreet
, Associate in Research
Ms. Alicia Overstreet, Associate in Research, graduated from Duke University in 1999 with a Bachelor of Science in Biology, and is currently pursuing a Doctor of Medicine degree at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill School of Medicine. A native of Nicaragua, she possesses a keen interest in environmental justice and disparate social and environmental risk. Her research interests include environmental toxicology and risk analysis with a special focus on maternal and child health.
Jerry Reiter, Ph.D.
, Mrs. Alexander Hehmeyer Associate Professor of Statistical Science
Dr. Jerry Reiter's main research interests include methods for protecting data subjects' confidentiality when sharing their data with the public, methods for handling missing data, analysis of complex surveys, and causal inference.
For more information, visit Dr. Reiter's webpage.
Heather M. Stapleton, Ph.D.
, Associate Professor of Environmental Chemistry
Stapleton's experience lies in the fate and transformation of organic contaminants in aquatic systems and indoor environments. Her research focuses on several types of persistent organic pollutants (POPs), including polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and brominated flame retardants, with a focus on polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs).
For more information, visit Heather Stapleton's webpage.
Geeta Swamy, M.D.
, Obstetrics/Gynecology
Dr. Geeta Swamy is a physician in the Department of Maternal and Fetal Medicine at the Duke University Medical Center. Her clinical interests include preterm birth, fetal growth, and maternal complications of pregnancy.
For more information, visit Dr. Swamy's bio page.
Wayne R. Thomann, Ph.D.
, Director, Occupational and Environmental Safety
Dr. Wayne R. Thomann, Assistant Clinical Professor, Division of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, provides technical expertise in the areas of bioaerosols, allergens, and indoor air quality. Dr. Thomann has applied his background in microbiology to the assessment and control of biological agents in the indoor environment. He has been the lead investigator on many hundreds of assessments of the biological component of indoor air quality complaints or concerns. In the area of childhood allergen exposures, Dr. Thomann has conducted exposure assessments in the Ronald McDonald House of Durham, NC, alternative housing facilities for pediatric patients at Duke Hospital, and numerous public schools throughout North Carolina. Many of his recent investigations have involved the characterization and remediation of hurricane damaged (flooded) buildings in North Carolina and Florida.
Dr. Thomann also serves as the Director of Occupational and Environmental Safety at Duke University. Dr. Thomann is an active member of multiple international committees involved with defining protocols for the identification and management of environmental contaminants. In particular, he has applied his expertise in the control of bioaerosols to the revision of the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration, and Air Conditioning Engineers' Standard on Ventilation for Indoor Air Quality, the development of a new Bioaerosol Assessment Guide for the American Society of Testing and Materials, and the definition of maintenance and cleaning protocols for the International Society of Indoor Air Quality and Climate.
For more information, visit Dr. Thomann's bio page.