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Certifying Personal Protective Technologies: Improving Worker Safety (2011)

Chapter: Appendix C: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members

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Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members." Institute of Medicine. 2011. Certifying Personal Protective Technologies: Improving Worker Safety. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12962.
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C
Biographical Sketches of Committee Members

Howard J. Cohen, M.P.H., Ph.D., CIH (Chair), is professor emeritus at the University of New Haven, where he was professor and chair of the Occupational Safety and Health Department. He is an associate (adjunct) professor at Yale University’s Department of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. He formerly was the manager of industrial hygiene at the Olin Corporation and editor in chief of the American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA) Journal. He is certified in the comprehensive practice of industrial hygiene by the American Board of Industrial Hygiene. Dr. Cohen is the former chair of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) Z88.2 committee on respiratory protection and a current member of the editorial board of the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene. He is the past chair of the AIHA’s respiratory protection committee, a past president of the Connecticut River Valley Chapter of the AIHA, and a past officer and treasurer of the American Board of Industrial Hygiene. Dr. Cohen served on the Institute of Medicine (IOM) Committee on Personal Protective Equipment for Healthcare Workers During an Influenza Pandemic and on the IOM Standing Committee on Personal Protective Equipment for Workplace Safety and Health. He is currently working as a consultant to the Veterans Administration’s North Florida/South Georgia Center for Occupational Safety and Infectious Disease (on the Advisory Board and assisting on an upcoming clinical study of influenza). Dr. Cohen is also a consultant to a pharmaceutical company that has developed the first Food and Drug Administration/National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health-(NIOSH-)certified antiviral N95 surgical respirator. He is a graduate of Boston University, where he received a B.A. in Biology. Dr. Cohen re-

Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members." Institute of Medicine. 2011. Certifying Personal Protective Technologies: Improving Worker Safety. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12962.
×

ceived his M.P.H. and Ph.D. in industrial health from the University of Michigan.


Roger L. Barker, Ph.D., is the Burlington Distinguished Professor in the Department of Textile Engineering, Chemistry, and Science at North Carolina State University and director of the Center for Research on Textile Protection and Comfort. He has been engaged in research and standards development for protective clothing for more than 20 years and is internationally recognized for his work in the field of protective clothing systems. Dr. Barker has published many technical papers on the protective properties of textile materials and clothing and on testing methods used for evaluation. He is active in the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), ASTM International, and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) committees involved in the development of standards for measurement for personal protective equipment. Dr. Barker holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in physics from the University of Tennessee and a Ph.D. in textile and polymer science from Clemson University.


Janice Comer Bradley, M.A., is the executive vice president for the Waste Equipment Technology Association (WASTEC), where she represents manufacturers of equipment and technologies as well as service providers for the refuse and recycling industry. Prior to joining WASTEC, she was the vice president and technical director for the International Safety Equipment Association, where she managed the voluntary standards-setting and technical 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, distribution, and conformity assessment of trash and recycling equipment, and she represents WASTEC on numerous committees, government panels, and association boards. Ms. Bradley has also spent a significant portion of her career in the higher education and healthcare industries as the director of environmental health and safety for 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 safety professional certified by the American Society of Safety Engineers. She has been an adjunct professor at Georgetown University, teaching a graduate-level course in the M.B.A. program that introduces future business leaders to workplace safety and health issues. Ms. Bradley earned a B.S. from the University

Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members." Institute of Medicine. 2011. Certifying Personal Protective Technologies: Improving Worker Safety. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12962.
×

of Dayton and a master’s degree in environmental studies from Brown University.


Barbara J. Burgel, R.N., Ph.D., FAAN, is a certified occupational health nurse-specialist and clinical professor in the Department of Community Health Systems at the University of California–San Francisco (UCSF). She served on the board of directors for the American Board for Occupational Health Nurses. Her research focuses on evaluating the health and safety of low-wage workers. She has also acted as vice chair in the Department of Community Health Systems at UCSF. From 2000 to 2006, Dr. Burgel served as clinical director of the Community Occupational Health Project, funded by both the California Wellness Foundation and the California Endowment to provide education, outreach, and free weekly clinical services to low-wage immigrant workers in Alameda County. This faculty practice resulted in a major report on garment worker health and safety, three peer-reviewed publications, multiple presentations at national and international meetings, and extensive public press media coverage. She is currently pursuing a research project on taxi driver health and safety. Dr. Burgel has served in many professional organizations, including the American Nurses Association/California, American Association of Occupational Health Nurses, American Board for Occupational Health Nurses, International Commission on Occupational Health, and American Academy of Nursing. Dr. Burgel has also acted as a consultant for many governmental, industrial, and nonprofit groups, including NIOSH, the California State Health Department, Life-Masters, and Literacy for Environmental Justice. She received a B.S.N. from the University of Michigan before completing an M.S. in Nursing from UCSF. At that time she became a registered nurse practitioner in California and then a clinical instructor and professor. Dr. Burgel completed her Ph.D. at UCSF.


Michael Easterbrook, M.D., is a professor of ophthalmology at the University of Toronto. He is presently on active staff at the Toronto Western Hospital, St. Michael’s Hospital, Princess Margaret Hospital, and Mt. Sinai Hospital. For 25 years, Dr. Easterbrook was the eye surgeon for the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team. For the past 10 years, he has been the consultant to the Toronto Raptors basketball team and most recently to the Toronto FC professional soccer club. Dr. Easterbrook has been active in preventing eye injuries in sport at both the amateur and professional levels. He is a medical consultant to the World Squash As-

Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members." Institute of Medicine. 2011. Certifying Personal Protective Technologies: Improving Worker Safety. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12962.
×

sociation, Squash Canada, and Squash Ontario, and has consulted for the Canadian Badminton Association, American Amateur Racquetball Association, and Canadian Standards Association. He has written standards for prevention of eye injuries in sports, and lectures both nationally and internationally on his interests. Dr. Easterbrook graduated from the University of Toronto Medical School. He did a year of residency in neurology at Montreal General, followed by 3 years of ophthalmology in Toronto. A fellowship in uveitis and external disease was followed at the Proctor Institute at UCSF.


Christina Egan, Ph.D., is director of the Biodefense Laboratory at the Wadsworth Center, New York State Department of Health. Dr. Egan’s job duties include implementation of Laboratory Response Network protocols and policies as well as development of methods to counteract biothreats. Dr. Egan also participates in the New York State (NYS) Environmental Laboratory Approval Program and NYS Clinical Laboratory Approval Program by helping to develop surveys, guidelines, and checklists for laboratories interested in analyzing biothreat specimens and samples. In this capacity, she has performed onsite inspections and reviewed laboratory methods and protocols. She has participated on a number of federal and state committees to create standards for biothreat detection methods and has developed and provided training courses for first responders as well as clinical laboratorians. Dr. Egan serves on the Science and Technology Subcommittee of the national InterAgency Board for Equipment Standardization and Interoperability. She has received the designation of Certified Biological Safety Personnel through the National Registry of Certified Microbiologists. She is an assistant professor in the State University of New York School of Public Health, Department of Biomedical Sciences. Dr. Egan received a B.S. from Siena College prior to obtaining a Ph.D. in pharmacology from Albany Medical College.


Alexander Isakov, M.D., M.P.H., is the founding director of the Emory University Office of Critical Event Preparedness and Response, which reports to the university president and serves as the center for Emory’s enterprise-wide planning for and coordinated response to catastrophic events. He is an associate professor of emergency medicine, and directs Emory’s Section of Prehospital and Disaster Medicine, whose faculty provides medical oversight for 9-1-1 ground and air ambulance responders in the City of Atlanta/Fulton County, Georgia. He also directs the

Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members." Institute of Medicine. 2011. Certifying Personal Protective Technologies: Improving Worker Safety. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12962.
×

Grady Emergency Medical Services Bio-Safety Transport Program, which supports Emory University, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport for the transport of individuals who pose a serious communicable disease risk. Dr. Isakov practices clinically in the emergency departments of Grady Memorial Hospital, Atlanta’s primary safety-net hospital and level 1 trauma center, and Emory University Hospital.


Sundaresan Jayaraman, Ph.D., is the Kolon Professor in the School of Materials Science and Engineering and in the College of Management at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. He and his research students have made significant contributions in enterprise architecture and modeling methodologies for information systems; engineering design of intelligent textile structures and processes; and design and development of knowledge-based systems for textiles and apparel. His group’s research has resulted in the realization of the world’s first Wearable Motherboard™ or Sart Shirt. He is currently engaged in studying the role of management and technology innovation in health care. He was involved in the design and development of TK!Solver, the first equation-solving program from Software Arts, Inc., Cambridge, Massachusetts. Dr. Jayaraman worked as a product manager at Software Arts, Inc., and at Lotus Development Corporation in Cambridge before joining Georgia Tech. Professor Jayaraman is a recipient of the 1989 Presidential Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation for his research in the area of computer-aided manufacturing and enterprise architecture. He has served on several Institute of Medicine (IOM) and National Research Council committees, including the Committee on Personal Protective Equipment for Healthcare Workers During an Influenza Pandemic, the IOM Standing Committee on Personal Protective Equipment for Workplace Safety and Health, and the Board on Manufacturing and Engineering Design. He received his B.Tech. and M.Tech. degrees from the University of Madras, India, and his Ph.D. from North Carolina State University.


James S. Johnson, Ph.D., CIH, QEP, is an industrial hygienist consultant who specializes in respiratory protection and personal protective equipment. He retired from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in 2006 after 34 years of service in a variety of health and safety assignments. His position at LLNL from 2000 to 2006 was section leader of the Chemical and Biological Safety Section of the Safety Pro-

Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members." Institute of Medicine. 2011. Certifying Personal Protective Technologies: Improving Worker Safety. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12962.
×

grams Division. Throughout his career at LLNL, Dr. Johnson has been involved with respiratory protection and personal protective equipment as the respiratory program administrator, research scientist, assistant department head, and division and section manager. Throughout his career he has also developed, organized, and presented a wide variety of industrial hygiene training programs and classes. The most recent was a 1-day seminar titled “Respiratory Protection for Aerosol Transmissible Diseases” presented at the Center for Occupational & Environmental Health, University of California–Berkeley, in July 2009. Dr. Johnson is an AIHA Fellow; a member of the NFPA Technical Correlating Committee on Fire and Emergency Services Protective Clothing and Equipment; a member of the NFPA Respiratory Protection Equipment Committee; a board member of the International Society for Respiratory Protection and Americas Section; chair of the AIHA/ANSI Z88 Secretariat for Respiratory Protection; and a member and vice chair of the AIHA Respirator Committee. He is also a member of the AIHA Protective Clothing and Equipment Committees and the Emergency Preparedness and Response Task Force. Dr. Johnson is a certified industrial hygienist. He serves as a member of the IOM Standing Committee on Personal Protective Equipment for Workplace Safety and Health.


Melissa A. McDiarmid, M.D., M.P.H., is professor of medicine and director of the School of Medicine’s Occupational Health Program at the University of Maryland. She is board certified in internal medicine, occupational medicine, and toxicology. She maintains professional society affiliations as a Fellow of the Collegium Ramazzini, American College of Physicians, American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, and American College of Preventive Medicine. She is a member of the American Public Health Association and the Society of Occupational and Environmental Health. Dr. McDiarmid was director of the Office of Occupational Medicine for the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) in Washington, DC, a position she held from 1991 until 1996. A principal career focus for Dr. McDiarmid has been that of environmental reproductive and developmental hazards. While at OSHA she guided the reproductive health effects aspects of several standards, including those for cadmium, butadiene, and methylene chloride. She is currently the cochair of the NIOSH/NORA (National Occupational Research Agenda) work group on reproductive health. Dr. McDiarmid has authored numerous journal articles and book chapters on occupational and environmental medicine topics related to

Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members." Institute of Medicine. 2011. Certifying Personal Protective Technologies: Improving Worker Safety. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12962.
×

healthcare workers, medical surveillance and management, reproductive hazards, and occupational cancers. She received her B.A. in biological sciences from the University of Maryland–Baltimore County; her M.D. from the University of Maryland School of Medicine; and her M.P.H. from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, where she also completed fellowship training in Occupational Medicine. Dr. McDiarmid serves as a member of the IOM Standing Committee on Personal Protective Equipment for Workplace Safety and Health.


James W. Platner, Ph.D., CIH, is the associate director of the CPWR Center for Construction Research and Training, which is the research and training institute of the Building and Construction Trades Department, AFL-CIO. He is a member of the ANSI A10 American National Standards Committee on Safety in Construction and Demolition Operations and the ANSI Z10 American National Standards Committee on Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems. He is a co-principal investigator of the NIOSH National Construction Research Center, and is actively engaged in issues related to personal protective technologies in construction. He has a B.S. in biophysics from Johns Hopkins University, an M.S. in radiation biology, and a Ph.D. in toxicology from the University of Rochester School of Medicine, and is a certified industrial hygienist (CIH) and a fellow of the American Industrial Hygiene Association.


Anugrah Shaw, Ph.D., is a textile technologist and a professor at the University of Maryland–Eastern Shore (UMES) and has conducted research on protective clothing for pesticide applicators for more than 2 decades. Her research includes work related to standardization of test methods, development of performance specifications, and studies related to the development and evaluation of personal protective equipment for hot climates. Dr. Shaw was responsible for the creation of an extensive database that includes data for more than 130 fabrics that were evaluated at UMES. This database has been used to develop an online system for work and protective clothing. Dr. Shaw serves as the technical contact for ASTM and ISO standards and performance specifications for protective clothing for pesticide applicators, and as an ISO delegate for a subcommittee on protective clothing. She has presented at numerous national and international conferences, published in several refereed journals, and written a book chapter on the selection of personal protec-

Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members." Institute of Medicine. 2011. Certifying Personal Protective Technologies: Improving Worker Safety. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12962.
×

tive equipment. She received her Ph.D. in textile technology from Texas Woman’s University.


Tanya Wanchek, Ph.D., J.D., is a health economist/lecturer at the University of Virginia, with a joint appointment at the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service, Center for Economic and Policy Studies, and the School of Medicine, Department of Public Health Sciences. Her research focuses on occupational licensure, rural workforce development, childhood obesity, and mental health law. She teaches a course on healthcare economics for the M.P.H. program. She is also a faculty member of the Healthy Appalachia Institute at the University of Virginia’s College at Wise. She obtained her Ph.D. in economics from the University of Washington and her J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law.


Samuel E. Wehr serves as Mustang Survival’s manager for Canadian, United States, and international standards for personal flotation devices (PFDs) and related regulations. He is serving as the chair of several Underwriters Laboratories Standards Technical Panel task groups, including the one dealing with development on a single consolidated North American standard for wearable PFDs. Until 2007, Mr. Wehr served as the Coast Guard’s senior project engineer for the approval of PFDs or life-jackets and for rigid survival craft along with the development of standards and regulations for PFDs and survival craft. He represented the Coast Guard in the ISO for recreational boating PFDs and the International Maritime Organization (IMO) for lifesaving equipment for use on commercial vessels. He served as the correspondence group coordinator for IMO’s project to improve personal lifesaving appliances. He worked for the Coast Guard on approval of lifesaving equipment beginning in 1977. His work included oversight of research and development projects dealing with all aspects of PFD performance, computer modeling of the in-water performance of PFDs, development of mannequins for evaluation of the rough-water performance of PFDs, and operational reliability of inflatable PFDs when used by recreational boaters. Mr. Wehr graduated from Pennsylvania State University in 1971 with a B.S. in engineering.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members." Institute of Medicine. 2011. Certifying Personal Protective Technologies: Improving Worker Safety. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12962.
×
Page 143
Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members." Institute of Medicine. 2011. Certifying Personal Protective Technologies: Improving Worker Safety. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12962.
×
Page 144
Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members." Institute of Medicine. 2011. Certifying Personal Protective Technologies: Improving Worker Safety. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12962.
×
Page 145
Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members." Institute of Medicine. 2011. Certifying Personal Protective Technologies: Improving Worker Safety. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12962.
×
Page 146
Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members." Institute of Medicine. 2011. Certifying Personal Protective Technologies: Improving Worker Safety. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12962.
×
Page 147
Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members." Institute of Medicine. 2011. Certifying Personal Protective Technologies: Improving Worker Safety. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12962.
×
Page 148
Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members." Institute of Medicine. 2011. Certifying Personal Protective Technologies: Improving Worker Safety. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12962.
×
Page 149
Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members." Institute of Medicine. 2011. Certifying Personal Protective Technologies: Improving Worker Safety. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12962.
×
Page 150
Certifying Personal Protective Technologies: Improving Worker Safety Get This Book
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When you purchase a product, you expect it to work. Construction workers on high-rise buildings need to be confident that their safety harnesses will arrest a fall. Firefighters need to know that their gloves and other protective equipment can withstand high temperatures. Healthcare workers administering highly toxic chemotherapy agents need to know that their gloves will withstand penetration. For personal protective technologies (PPT)—where the major purpose of the product is to protect the wearer against a hazard—a deficit in product effectiveness can mean injury, illness, or death. Examining the extent to which products meet specific performance or design criteria is the focus of conformity assessment efforts. For PPT conformity assessment, the ultimate goal is preventing worker illness, injury, or death from hazardous working conditions.

Certifying Personal Protective Technologies focuses on conformity assessment for occupational PPT—ensuring that PPT are effective in preventing or reducing hazardous exposures or situations that workers face in their jobs. Because respirators already have an extensive testing and conformity assessment process in place, this book specifically addresses conformity assessment processes for other types of PPT, including eye and face protection, gloves, hearing protectors, and protective clothing.

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