Biographical Sketches of Committee Members
Randal J. Keller is currently a professor in the Department of Occupational Safety and Health at Murray State University, Kentucky. He received a B.A. in chemistry from Eisenhower College in 1979; an M.S. in toxicology from Utah State University in 1984; and a Ph.D. in toxicology, also from Utah State University, in 1988. He is certified in the comprehensive practice of industrial hygiene by the American Board of Industrial Hygiene, in the comprehensive practice of safety by the Board of Certified Safety Professionals, and in the general practice of toxicology by the American Board of Toxicology. Dr. Keller is widely published and maintains an independent consulting practice related to toxicology, industrial hygiene, and safety. He served on the NRC’s Committee to Review and Assess Industrial Hygiene Standards and Practices at Tooele Chemical Agent Disposal Facility (TOCDF), the Committee on Evaluation of Safety and Environmental Metrics for Potential Application at Chemical Agent Disposal Facilities, and the Committee on the Assessment of Process Safety Metrics for the Blue Grass and Pueblo Chemical Agent Destruction Pilot Plants.
Judith A. Bradbury is an independent consultant who recently retired from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. She has extensive experience in the research and practice of public involvement in hazardous technologies. Her work includes management of a series of evaluations of the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) site-specific advisory boards and an assessment of community perspectives on the U.S. Army Chemical Weapons Disposal program. Her most recent experience was in managing public outreach activities for the Midwest Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership Program, sponsored by DOE. She has coauthored several research reports on communication and engagement, including identification of factors contributing to effective engagement in carbon capture and storage. She is currently a member of the European ECO2 Scientific Advisory Board. Dr. Bradbury was initially educated in the United Kingdom and has a degree in sociology from the London School of Economics. Subsequently, she earned an M.A. in public affairs from Indiana University of Pennsylvania and a Ph.D. in public and international affairs from the University of Pittsburgh.
Randall J. Cramer is an environmental protection specialist at the Ordnance Environmental Support Office of the Naval Ordnance Safety and Security Activity. Dr. Cramer has a multidisciplinary background and broad research experience in government, academia, and private industry. He provides technical expertise in munitions and ordnance environmental research and development, military munitions demilitarization recycling and reuse, pollution prevention in ordnance development and manufacturing. He also performs U.S. Navy explosives safety inspections to ensure navy installations are in environmental compliance with explosive
hazardous waste management regulations. Dr. Cramer currently chairs the Joint Ordnance Commanders Group Environmental Subgroup and is a member of the Joint Army-Navy-NASA-Air Force Safety and Environmental Subcommittee and is the Navy representative on the Interagency Committee on Explosives. He supports the Navy on the Clean Air Act, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), and EPCRA/TRI Services steering committees. He has given numerous presentations to the technical community, published several papers, and is the inventor for eight patents.
Eric D. Erickson is a senior scientist in the Energetics Research Division of the Weapons and Energetics Department at the Naval Air Warfare Center in China Lake, California, where he provides technical support for several weapons program offices. Before that, Dr. Erickson was a principal investigator in the Instrumental Analytical Chemistry Branch in the Research and Intelligence Department at the Center. His research activities have included the development of several ordnance demilitarization technologies and the monitoring of their emissions. Dr. Erickson received a B.S. in chemistry from Oregon State University and a Ph.D. in analytical chemistry from Michigan State University. He also has a certificate of achievement in industrial hygiene from San Diego City College.
Brad E. Forch has been the Army Chief Scientist for Ballistics (ST) for the Weapons and Materials Research Directorate at the U.S. Army Research Laboratory since January 2009. His research expertise is in a wide range of ballistics, including developing the fundamental understanding of chemical and physical mechanisms controlling chemical energy storage, ignition, combustion, and release in propellants, explosives, and novel energetic material structures for weapons applications. He was the chief of the Propulsion Science Branch in the Ballistics and Weapons Concepts Division of the Weapons and Materials Research Directorate from 2000 to 2009 and chief of the Ignition and Combustion Branch in the Propulsion and Flight Division of the Weapons Technology Directorate from 1995 to 2000. As a supervisory research physicist, Dr. Forch was responsible for the direction of a wide range of basic and applied scientific research and concept development activities in ballistics, energetic materials, novel propellants and explosives, nanoenergetic materials, reactive materials, and ignition and combustion research. He served as a research scientist and team leader from 1986 to 1995 in the Interior Ballistics Division of what was then the U.S. Army Ballistic Research Laboratory (BRL). His work focused on research leading to applications of lasers for the initiation of propellants and propelling charges for large-caliber guns and the development of ignition systems and requirements for current and future propulsion systems. Dr. Forch was a NRC postdoctoral fellow at the BRL in 1985. His primary areas of research included the application of laser-based techniques such as multiphoton photochemistry, multiphoton fluorescence and ionization spectroscopy, and laser photochemistry to understand the detailed chemistry and energy-releasing processes of energetic materials. Dr. Forch received a B.S. in chemistry and an M.S. in physical chemistry from Illinois State University in 1978 and 1979, respectively. He received a Ph.D. in physical chemistry/chemical physics from Wayne State University, in Michigan, in 1984.
Scott E. Meyer is the managing director of the Maurice Zucrow Laboratories at Purdue University. He is responsible for the safe and productive utilization of Zucrow Labs’ unique research and testing capabilities. He collaborates with faculty in the development of new experimental capabilities and is responsible for the design and implementation of new facility
infrastructure. Mr. Meyer supervises Zucrow staff and approximately 75 graduate students in the design, fabrication, setup, and safe operation of gas turbine, rocket, and other combustion experiments, including the specification of instrumentation; data acquisition and control systems; and fluid systems and components. Prior to joining Zucrow Laboratories, Mr. Meyer was a propulsion engineer at Beal Aerospace and a project engineer in the Propulsion Wind Tunnel group at Arnold Engineering Development Center. Mr. Meyer received both a B.S. and an M.S. in aeronautics and astronautics engineering from Purdue University.
Bobby L. Wilson is the L. Lloyd Woods Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and Shell Oil Endowed Chaired Professor of Environmental Toxicology at Texas Southern University (TSU). He has held many positions during his more than 30 years at TSU, including provost and acting president. Dr. Wilson received his B.S. in chemistry from Alabama State University; an M.S. in chemistry from Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and a Ph.D. in chemistry from Michigan State University.
Dr. Wilson’s research has focused on unusual metal-centered complexes of early first, second, and third row transition elements using spectroscopic techniques and in the area of environmental chemistry and toxicology, particularly water and air pollution. In addition to water and air, trace metal and radionuclide concentrations are also being investigated. Other areas of concerns are catalytic coal liquefaction to enhance the conversion yields and properties of the liquid products from coal and the synthesis of transition metal complexes as models in an effort to reduce lunar materials, such as titanium ilmenite (FeTiO3) and rutile (TiO2) with the production of molecular oxygen. This could lead to the production of molecular oxygen on the moon.
As founder of the TSU-NASA Research Center for Biotechnology and Environmental Health (RCBEH) at TSU, Dr. Wilson led a team to investigate the toxicology of the space travel environment by using the cutting-edge tools, approaches, and applications of nanotechnology and genomics. The overall goals, associated with the two focus areas of microorganisms and genotoxicology, are to identify “space genes” that may affect human adaptation in the space environment and to measure oxidative stress and DNA damage in human and mammalian cells.
Dr. Wilson has been instrumental in building the research component of the science programs at TSU. His efforts have generated over $60 million in research and training grants to the university. His commitment to promoting the TSU’s research agenda for its professors and producing future scientists led to the construction of the TSU Science Center, a $35 million structure with state-of-the-art laboratories, classrooms, and computer labs. A 4,300 square foot lab houses the Houston Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation Program. This lab has 33 computers, two large printers, and two 50-inch plasma flat screen monitors. It also has teleconferencing capabilities, which enable students to interact with and present their research to other colleges and universities.
Perhaps his most ambitious and forward-looking venture has been the establishment of the Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LSAMP) in seven Houston-area colleges and universities. He is the co-principal investigator of this consortium, which is designed to substantially increase the number of underrepresented minorities in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Its success at Texas Southern University and other Houston-area colleges and universities has been judged to be among the best LSAMP program in the nation. This judgment bears witness to Dr. Wilson’s vision and leadership.
Dr. Wilson has also been a mentor to over 70 master’s degree students in chemistry and 20 master’s and/or Ph.D. students in the Environmental Toxicology Program, which he was instrumental in establishing as TSU’s first Ph.D. program.
