National Academies Press: OpenBook

Measuring Respirator Use in the Workplace (2007)

Chapter: Appendix B Biographical Sketches of Committee Members and Staff

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Suggested Citation:"Appendix B Biographical Sketches of Committee Members and Staff." National Research Council. 2007. Measuring Respirator Use in the Workplace. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11799.
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Appendix B
Biographical Sketches of Committee Members and Staff

COMMITTEE

William D. Kalsbeek (chair) is professor of biostatistics and director of the Survey Research Unit at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. His experience includes statistical research with the Office of Research and Methodology at the National Center for Health Statistics and at the Sampling Research and Design Center at the Research Triangle Institute (RTI) in North Carolina. He is a fellow of the American Statistical Association (ASA) and a member of the American Association of Public Opinion Research and the American Public Health Association. He received his M.P.H. and Ph.D. degrees in biostatistics from the University of Michigan. Dr. Kalsbeek’s research interests and areas of expertise are in biostatistics, survey design and research, spinal cord injuries, and assessment. He is well known for his work in survey methods. He was a member of the Committee on National Statistics (CNSTAT) of the National Academies from 1998 to 2004 and has served as a member of the Committee on Sampling Methodologies and the Panel on the National Health Care Survey, as well as co-chair of the Oversight Panel for the Workshop on Survey Automation.


Johnny Blair is senior survey methodologist and a principal scientist at Abt Associates. He was previously associate and acting director of the Survey Research Center, University of Maryland, and, prior to that, operations manager at the Survey Research Laboratory, University of Illinois. He has also served on the ASA Committee on Energy Statistics, advisory to the Energy Information Administration, and since 1996 on the Design and Analysis Committee advisory to Educational Testing Service for the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Over a 35-year career, he has conducted survey methodology research in a number of areas, including sample design for special populations, laboratory pretesting methods, and response effects. His many publications include the book Designing Surveys: A Guide to Decisions and Procedures, Second Edition (with Ronald Czaja), Sage Publications.


Janice Comer Bradley is technical director of the International Safety Equipment Association (ISEA), where she directs the voluntary standards-setting activities of 13 product groups representing suppliers of safety and health equipment. She works closely with federal regulatory agencies and outside standards bodies to influence activities that affect the manufacture, use, and distribution of safety equipment, and she represents ISEA on numerous standards committees and government panels. Ms. Bradley earned a B.S. degree from the University of Dayton and a master’s degree in environmental studies from Brown University. Ms. Bradley has spent her entire career in the safety and health field. Prior to her work at ISEA she was the director of environmental health and safety for the Rockefeller University in New York City, the university health and safety officer for Brown University, and the safety specialist for the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Dayton, Ohio. Ms. Bradley is a certified safety professional by the American Society of Safety Engineers and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University where she teaches a graduate-level course in the M.B.A. program that introduces future business leaders to workplace safety and health issues.


Zane Frund is manager of the Chemical Research and Analytical Services Division of Mine Safety and Appliances Co. He is responsible for the development and evaluation of designs and compounds used in a wide range of occupational health and safety equipment applications (e.g., air-purifying respirators, body armor, firefighter self-contained breathing apparatus, thermal imaging camera, solid oxygen-containing

Suggested Citation:"Appendix B Biographical Sketches of Committee Members and Staff." National Research Council. 2007. Measuring Respirator Use in the Workplace. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11799.
×

self-rescuers). He developed a curriculum and instructed college- and university-level courses associated with occupational health and respiratory protection, materials science and engineering, forensic science, and forensic chemistry. He has also served as a peer reviewer of technical reports and manuscripts for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), the American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA) Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene, and International Society for Respiratory Protection Journal. He received his Ph.D. in materials engineering (currently part of chemical engineering) with a minor in occupational and environmental health in May 1998 from the University of Pittsburgh.


Arthur T. Johnson is professor of bioengineering at the University of Maryland. His research interests are effects of respirator wear on human performance, exercise physiology, and respiratory monitoring. His teaching interest is engineering related to biological systems. He is the author of more than 100 peer-reviewed publications, 3 books, and 25 book chapters. He is currently president of the International Society for Respiratory Protection. He is a fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, American Society for Engineering Education, American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers, Biomedical Engineering Society, and AIHA.


Virginia Lesser is director of the Survey Research Center at Oregon State University, where she also serves as associate professor in the Statistics Department. Her research interests are in sampling, survey methodology, environmental statistics, and applied statistics. She has written on nonsampling error, the effects of item and unit nonresponse on nonresponse error, and multiphase sampling. She holds a Ph.D. in biostatistics from the University of North Carolina and an undergraduate degree in biology.


James Platner is the associate director of the Center to Protect Workers’ Rights, which is the research and training institute of the Building and Construction Trades Department, AFL-CIO. Dr. Platner manages construction occupational safety and health research projects with a national academic consortium through a cooperative agreement with NIOSH. He has a B.S. in biophysics from Johns Hopkins, and an M.S. in radiation biology and a Ph.D. in toxicology and radiation biology from the University of Rochester School of Medicine. He is American Board of Industrial Hygiene certified in industrial hygiene. He also serves on the National Academy of Sciences standing Committee on Personal Protective Equipment for Workplace Safety and Health.


David Sarvadi is an attorney who works with clients in the areas of occupational health and safety, toxic substance management, pesticide regulation, employment law, and product safety. He represents clients before a variety of federal and state enforcement agencies in legal proceedings involving the Occupational Safety and Health Administration citations, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Notice of Violations, Toxic Substances Control Act consent orders, Consumer Product Safety Commission Notices, Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act Stop Sale Use and Removal Orders, and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission charges of discrimination. He works with clients in developing, reviewing, and auditing compliance programs in all of these areas, and in obtaining agency rulings on proposed or novel activities and questions, seeking interpretations of regulations as they apply to specific sets of facts. He has a background in occupational safety and health, having worked as an industrial hygienist for more than 15 years before he became a certified industrial hygienist in 1978. Prior to becoming an attorney, he was a principal in a small consulting firm and managed a corporate industrial hygiene and product safety program for a Fortune 500 company. Mr. Sarvadi received his B.S.-B.A. from Pennsylvania State University (1969), his M.Sc. from University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health (1970), and his J.D. from George Mason University (1986). Mr. Sarvadi is a member of the District of Columbia and Virginia Bars.


Bruce J. Tatarchuk is Ginn Professor of Engineering and director and founder of the Center for Microfibrous Materials Manufacturing, Department of Chemical Engineering, Auburn University, Alabama. His research involves ways to make fuel cells more efficient using microfibrous structures and the development of microfibrous structures to be used in the manufacture of respirators and other protective devices. More broadly, his research involves heterogeneous reactivity at solid surfaces.


Michael Weeks is a senior survey director at RTI. In his 35-year career in survey research he has successfully managed numerous survey projects ranging from small local studies to large national surveys. He is widely recognized as an expert project manager and has developed and taught seminars on the management of survey research projects at federal agencies, universities, private organizations, and professional conferences. He has conducted experiments on a variety of methodological issues in survey research and has reported his findings in numerous professional papers and publications. He has served on the Editorial Board of Public Opinion Quarterly and on two national advisory panels.

STAFF

Thomas J. Plewes (study director) is a senior program officer for CNSTAT of the National Academy of Sciences. He previously served as study director for the National Academies’ Review of Research and Development Statistics

Suggested Citation:"Appendix B Biographical Sketches of Committee Members and Staff." National Research Council. 2007. Measuring Respirator Use in the Workplace. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11799.
×

at the National Science Foundation. He is a fellow of the ASA. Prior to joining the CNSTAT staff, he was associate commissioner for employment and unemployment statistics of the Bureau of Labor Statistics and served as chief of the U.S. Army Reserve. He was a member of the Federal Committee on Statistical Methodology. He has a B.A. degree in economics from Hope College and an M.A. degree in economics from the George Washington University.


Ericka McGowan is associate program officer on the Board on Chemical Sciences and Technology. A native of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, she came to the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area in 2001 to work at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). She served NIH for two years as a grants technical assistant before joining the National Academies as a research associate. She has a B.S. degree in biology with a minor in chemistry from Southern University and A&M College in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and is currently pursuing a master of science in public health microbiology and emerging infectious diseases from George Washington University. She is also a member of the American Public Health Association.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix B Biographical Sketches of Committee Members and Staff." National Research Council. 2007. Measuring Respirator Use in the Workplace. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11799.
×
Page 66
Suggested Citation:"Appendix B Biographical Sketches of Committee Members and Staff." National Research Council. 2007. Measuring Respirator Use in the Workplace. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11799.
×
Page 67
Suggested Citation:"Appendix B Biographical Sketches of Committee Members and Staff." National Research Council. 2007. Measuring Respirator Use in the Workplace. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11799.
×
Page 68
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Respirators are used in a variety of workplaces including emergency response, mining operations, construction, manufacturing, and hospitals. In 2001, National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioned a nationwide survey of respirator use in the workplace, the results of which were published in the 2003 report Respirator Usage in Private Sector Firms. The purpose of the survey was to evaluate respirator use and practices, including training practices and the value of respirator manufacturer's instruction, in order to help guide NIOSH respirator certification and research. This National Research Council (NRC) report evaluates the survey in terms of several measures such as the adequacy and appropriateness of the survey instrument, the survey methodology, data analysis, and the conclusions drawn from the data. The NRC report finds that the survey was an important first step in collecting respiratory protection data from a probability sample but that several improvements could be made in survey design and analysis. Based on the review of the survey, the NRC report concludes that data on respirator use would be best provided by employers and employees in the context of the work setting.

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