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Scientific Review of the Proposed Risk Assessment Bulletin from the Office of Management and Budget (2007)

Chapter: Appendix A: Biographical Information on the Committee to Review the OMB Risk Assessment Bulletin

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Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Biographical Information on the Committee to Review the OMB Risk Assessment Bulletin." National Research Council. 2007. Scientific Review of the Proposed Risk Assessment Bulletin from the Office of Management and Budget. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11811.
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Appendix A
Biographical Information on the Committee to Review the OMB Risk Assessment Bulletin

John F. Ahearne (Chair) is the director of the Ethics Program for Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Society, and an adjunct scholar at Resources for the Future. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1996. His professional interests are risk analysis, reactor safety, energy issues, resource allocation, and public-policy management. He has served as commissioner and chair of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, system analyst for the White House Energy Office, deputy assistant secretary of energy, and principal deputy assistant secretary of defense. Dr. Ahearne currently serves on the Department of Energy's Nuclear Energy Research Advisory Committee. In addition, he has been active in several National Research Council committees examining issues in risk assessment and is a past president of the Society for Risk Analysis. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society, Society for Risk Analysis, American Association for the Advancement of Science, and American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Dr. Ahearne received his PhD in physics from Princeton University.


George V. Alexeeff is deputy director for scientific affairs in the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) of the California Environmental Protection Agency. He oversees a staff of over 80 scientists in multidisciplinary evaluations of the health impacts of pollutants

Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Biographical Information on the Committee to Review the OMB Risk Assessment Bulletin." National Research Council. 2007. Scientific Review of the Proposed Risk Assessment Bulletin from the Office of Management and Budget. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11811.
×

and toxicants in air, water, soil, and other media. Activities include reviewing epidemiologic and toxicologic data to identify hazards and derive risk-based assessments, developing guidelines to identify chemicals hazardous to the public, recommending air-quality standards, identifying toxic air contaminants, developing public-health goals for water contaminants, preparing evaluations for carcinogens and reproductive toxins (Proposition 65), issuing sport-fish advisories, training health personnel on pesticide-poisoning recognition, reviewing hazardous-waste site risk assessments, and conducting multimedia risk assessments. Previously, he was chief of the Air Toxicology and Epidemiology Section of OEHHA from October 1990 through February 1998. Dr. Alexeeff has over 50 publications in the fields of toxicology and risk assessment. He earned his PhD in pharmacology and toxicology from the University of California, Davis.


Gregory B. Baecher is a professor in the civil engineering program at the University of Maryland. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2006. Previously, Dr. Baecher served on the faculty of civil engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and as the CEO of ConSolve Incorporated in Lexington, Massachusetts. His expertise includes risk analysis, water-resources engineering, and statistical methods. Dr. Baecher has served on numerous National Research Council committees and panels. He earned his PhD in civil engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.


A. John Bailer is distinguished professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics and a senior researcher in the Scripps Gerontology Center at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. His research interests include the design and analysis of environmental- and occupational-health studies and quantitative risk estimation. Dr. Bailer is a fellow of the American Statistical Association (ASA), a fellow of the Society for Risk Analysis, and a recipient of the ASA Statistics and the Environment Distinguished Achievement Medal. He has served on a number of National Research Council committees. He also has served as a member of subcommittees of the Board of Scientific Counselors of the National Toxicology Program. He received his PhD in biostatistics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.


Roger M. Cooke is the Chauncey Starr Senior Fellow at Resources for the Future (RFF). His research interests include the mathematical modeling of risk and uncertainty, structured expert-judgment methods, and the

Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Biographical Information on the Committee to Review the OMB Risk Assessment Bulletin." National Research Council. 2007. Scientific Review of the Proposed Risk Assessment Bulletin from the Office of Management and Budget. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11811.
×

implementation of uncertainty analysis in policy-related decision-making. Recent research activities include assessing health risks posed by oil fires in Kuwait after the first Gulf War, chemical-weapons disposal, nuclear risk, nitrogen oxide emissions, and microbiologic risk. Before joining RFF, Dr. Cooke was professor of applied decision theory at the Department of Mathematics of Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. He earned his PhD at Yale University.


Charles E. Feigley is professor of environmental health sciences at the Arnold School of Public Health at the University of South Carolina (USC). His current research is primarily in exposure assessment and occupational-hygiene engineering with an emphasis on developing innovative exposure-assessment and exposure-control methods in health-care and school environments. He is principal investigator of the USC Center for Public Health Preparedness funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He has served on a number of National Research Council committees. He received his PhD in environmental sciences and engineering from the University of North Carolina.


Baruch Fischhoff is Howard Heinz University Professor in the Department of Social and Decision Sciences and Department of Engineering and Public Policy of Carnegie Mellon University, where he is head of the decision-sciences major and the Center for Integrated Study of Human Dimensions of Global Change. He was elected to the Institute of Medicine in 1993. Dr. Fischhoff’s research includes risk perception and communication, risk analysis and management, adolescent decision-making, medical informed consent, and environmental protection. He has been a co-author or editor of four books: Acceptable Risk (1981), A Two-State Solution in the Middle East: Prospects and Possibilities (1993), Preference Elicitation (1999), and Risk Communication: The Mental Models Approach (2001). Dr. Fischhoff has served on numerous Institute of Medicine and National Research Council committees. He is a fellow of the American Psychological Association and recipient of its Early Career Awards for Distinguished Scientific Contribution to Psychology and for Contributions to Psychology in the Public Interest. He is a past president of the Society for Risk Analysis and recipient of its Distinguished Achievement Award. He is a member of the Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Advisory Committee, the World Federation of Scientists Permanent Monitoring Panel on Terrorism, and the Environmental Protection Agency’s Scientific Advisory Board,

Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Biographical Information on the Committee to Review the OMB Risk Assessment Bulletin." National Research Council. 2007. Scientific Review of the Proposed Risk Assessment Bulletin from the Office of Management and Budget. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11811.
×

where he chairs the Subcommittee on Homeland Security. Dr. Fischhoff earned a PhD in psychology from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.


Charles P. Gerba is professor of environmental microbiology in the Departments of Microbiology and Immunology and Soil, Water and Environmental Science at the University of Arizona. He actively conducts research on the development of new disinfectants and drinking-water treatment processes, new methods for the detection of waterborne pathogens, occurrence and fate of pathogens in the environment, and microbial risk assessment. Dr. Gerba has written more than 400 articles and several textbooks in environmental microbiology and quantitative microbial risk assessment. He previously served as a member of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Science Advisory Board Committee on Drinking Water and Research Strategies. He is a member of the American Academy of Microbiology. He received a PhD in microbiology from the University of Miami.


Rose H. Goldman is associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and associate professor in the Department of Environmental Health at the Harvard School of Public Health. She is also chief of occupational and environmental medicine at Cambridge Health Alliance. Dr. Goldman's research interests include repetitive strain injuries, neurotoxicology, pediatric environmental health, and environmental and occupational medicine. She is a co-project director of the Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Unit at Cambridge Hospital and Children’s Hospital Boston. Dr. Goldman has served on numerous Institute of Medicine and National Research Council committees. She earned her MPH from the Harvard School of Public Health and her MD from the Yale School of Medicine and is board-certified in internal and preventive medicine (occupational medicine).


Robert Haveman is professor emeritus of economics and public affairs and research affiliate at the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research interests and publications focus on public finance, economics of environmental and natural-resources policy, benefit-cost analysis, and economics of poverty and social policy. Dr. Haveman’s current projects include work on the discrepancy in reported earnings in surveys compared with administrative records, on the adequacy of savings of older workers beginning retirement, and on the effects of Section 8 housing assistance on employment and earnings. He was director of the Institute for Research on Poverty

Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Biographical Information on the Committee to Review the OMB Risk Assessment Bulletin." National Research Council. 2007. Scientific Review of the Proposed Risk Assessment Bulletin from the Office of Management and Budget. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11811.
×

from 1971 to 1975 and of the La Follette School of Public Affairs from 1988 to 1991. Dr. Haveman has served as senior economist for the Subcommittee on Economy in Government, Joint Economic Committee, U.S. Congress. Dr. Haveman earned his PhD in economics from Vanderbilt University.


William E. Kastenberg is the Daniel M. Tellep Distinguished Professor in Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1997. His research interests include the development and application of risk-assessment and riskmanagement methods for complex technologic, natural, and social systems. He has examined a broad array of technical and social issues regarding nuclear and nonnuclear risks, including severe accidents at commercial nuclear-power plants, the spatial and temporal persistence of pesticides, incinerator emissions, contaminated groundwater, malicious human acts, and cost-benefit considerations for severe accident mitigation. More recently, he has focused on ethical issues concerning the development of new technologies. He is the author or coauthor of over 150 published papers and conference proceedings related to nuclear-reactor safety, risk assessment, risk management, public health, environmental risk assessment, ethics, and multistakeholder decision-making. Dr. Kastenberg was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1990 and of the American Nuclear Society in 1978. He has served on numerous National Research Council committees. Dr. Kastenberg earned his PhD in nuclear engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.


Sally Katzen is visiting professor of law at George Mason University. Previously, she taught administrative law and information-technology policy at the University of Michigan Law School. She has taught administrative law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School and the Georgetown Law Center. She has also taught American government courses to undergraduates at Smith College, Johns Hopkins University, and the University of Michigan (Washington Program). Before her teaching positions, she served as the administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) (1993-1998), as the deputy director of the National Economic Council in the White House (1998-1999), and as the deputy director for management in OMB (1999-2001). Before her government service, she was a partner in the Washington, DC, law firm of Wilmer, Cutler, and

Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Biographical Information on the Committee to Review the OMB Risk Assessment Bulletin." National Research Council. 2007. Scientific Review of the Proposed Risk Assessment Bulletin from the Office of Management and Budget. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11811.
×

Pickering, specializing in administrative law and legislative matters. She earned her JD from the University of Michigan Law School.


Eduardo Miranda is an assistant professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford University. Before joining Stanford, Dr. Miranda worked as a consulting structural engineer specializing in risk analysis and earthquake engineering. His research interests include the development of fragility functions for structural and nonstructural components, performance-based engineering, the simulation and visualization of construction operations, computer-based design automation of structures, the development of advanced structural systems, and the application and development of new sensing technology to civil engineering structures. Dr. Miranda earned his MS and PhD from the University of California, Berkeley.


Michael Newman is professor of marine science at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science at the College of William and Mary. His research interests include ecotoxicology, general and applied aquatic ecology, contaminant effects on populations, bioaccumulation, factors modifying inorganic-contaminant toxicity, fate of inorganic contaminants in aquatic systems, quantitative methods for ecologic risk assessment, toxicity models, and water quality. He earned his MS and PhD in environmental sciences from Rutgers University.


Dorothy E. Patton (retired) was previously adjunct professor at the Georgetown (University) Public Policy Institute and is a consultant with the Risk Science Institute of the International Life Sciences Institute. Dr. Patton has over 24 years of experience with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), where she served as the director of the Office of Science Policy, the executive director of the Science Policy Council, and the executive director of the Risk Assessment Forum. In those positions, her responsibilities included developing and implementing risk assessment policies and practices, environmental research planning and priority-setting, and long-range strategic planning in line with congressional mandates. She began her EPA career as an attorney in the Office of General Counsel, where she worked on air, pesticide, and toxic-substances issues. Dr. Patton has served on numerous National Research Council committees. She earned a PhD in biology from the University of Chicago and a JD from Columbia University School of Law.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Biographical Information on the Committee to Review the OMB Risk Assessment Bulletin." National Research Council. 2007. Scientific Review of the Proposed Risk Assessment Bulletin from the Office of Management and Budget. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11811.
×

Charles Poole is an associate professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the University of North Carolina School of Public Health. Previously, he was with the Boston University School of Public Health. Dr. Poole’s work focuses on the development and use of epidemiologic methods and principles, including problem definition, study design, data collection, statistical analysis, and the interpretation and application of research results, such as systematic review and meta-analysis. His research experience includes studies in environmental and occupational epidemiology. Dr. Poole was an epidemiologist in the Office of Pesticides and Toxic Substances of the Environmental Protection Agency for 5 years and worked for a decade as an epidemiologic consultant with a firm and independently. Dr. Poole has been a member of a number of National Research Council and Institute of Medicine committees. He received his MPH in health administration from the University of North Carolina School of Public Health and his ScD in epidemiology from the Harvard School of Public Health.


Danny D. Reible is the Bettie Margaret Smith Chair of Environmental Health Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin and codirector of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Hazardous Substance Research Center/South and Southwest. Dr. Reible was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2005. His research focuses on transport phenomena and their application to environmental mechanics, especially contaminant fate and transport in sediments. He directs projects to develop process understanding and tools for the assessment and management of risks posed by contaminated sediments and dredged materials. He has served on a number of National Research Council committees and boards. Dr. Reible earned his PhD in chemical engineering from the California Institute of Technology.


Joseph V. Rodricks is a founding principal of ENVIRON International, a technical consulting firm founded in 1982. He is an internationally recognized expert in toxicology and risk analysis and in their uses in regulation. He has consulted for hundreds of manufacturers, government agencies, and the World Health Organization. He has more than 150 publications on toxicology and risk analysis, and he has lectured nationally and internationally on these topics. Dr. Rodricks was formerly deputy associate commissioner for health affairs, and toxicologist for the Food and Drug Administration (1965-1980), and he is now a visiting professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health. He has been certified as a diplomate by the American Board of Toxicology since 1982.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Biographical Information on the Committee to Review the OMB Risk Assessment Bulletin." National Research Council. 2007. Scientific Review of the Proposed Risk Assessment Bulletin from the Office of Management and Budget. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11811.
×

Dr. Rodricks’s experience includes chemical products and contaminants in foods, food ingredients, air, water, hazardous wastes, the workplace, consumer products, and medical devices and pharmaceutical products. He has served on numerous National Research Council and Institute of Medicine committees. He earned his PhD in biochemistry from the University of Maryland and did postdoctoral work at the University of California, Berkeley.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Biographical Information on the Committee to Review the OMB Risk Assessment Bulletin." National Research Council. 2007. Scientific Review of the Proposed Risk Assessment Bulletin from the Office of Management and Budget. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11811.
×
Page 113
Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Biographical Information on the Committee to Review the OMB Risk Assessment Bulletin." National Research Council. 2007. Scientific Review of the Proposed Risk Assessment Bulletin from the Office of Management and Budget. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11811.
×
Page 114
Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Biographical Information on the Committee to Review the OMB Risk Assessment Bulletin." National Research Council. 2007. Scientific Review of the Proposed Risk Assessment Bulletin from the Office of Management and Budget. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11811.
×
Page 115
Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Biographical Information on the Committee to Review the OMB Risk Assessment Bulletin." National Research Council. 2007. Scientific Review of the Proposed Risk Assessment Bulletin from the Office of Management and Budget. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11811.
×
Page 116
Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Biographical Information on the Committee to Review the OMB Risk Assessment Bulletin." National Research Council. 2007. Scientific Review of the Proposed Risk Assessment Bulletin from the Office of Management and Budget. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11811.
×
Page 117
Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Biographical Information on the Committee to Review the OMB Risk Assessment Bulletin." National Research Council. 2007. Scientific Review of the Proposed Risk Assessment Bulletin from the Office of Management and Budget. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11811.
×
Page 118
Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Biographical Information on the Committee to Review the OMB Risk Assessment Bulletin." National Research Council. 2007. Scientific Review of the Proposed Risk Assessment Bulletin from the Office of Management and Budget. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11811.
×
Page 119
Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Biographical Information on the Committee to Review the OMB Risk Assessment Bulletin." National Research Council. 2007. Scientific Review of the Proposed Risk Assessment Bulletin from the Office of Management and Budget. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11811.
×
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Risk assessments are often used by the federal government to estimate the risk the public may face from such things as exposure to a chemical or the potential failure of an engineered structure, and they underlie many regulatory decisions. Last January, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued a draft bulletin for all federal agencies, which included a new definition of risk assessment and proposed standards aimed at improving federal risk assessments. This National Research Council report, written at the request of OMB, evaluates the draft bulletin and supports its overall goals of improving the quality of risk assessments. However, the report concludes that the draft bulletin is "fundamentally flawed" from a scientific and technical standpoint and should be withdrawn. Problems include an overly broad definition of risk assessment in conflict with long-established concepts and practices, and an overly narrow definition of adverse health effects—one that considers only clinically apparent effects to be adverse, ignoring other biological changes that could lead to health effects. The report also criticizes the draft bulletin for focusing mainly on human health risk assessments while neglecting assessments of technology and engineered structures.

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