Elevated Drought and Heat Tolerance of Mosquito Eggs are Critical to Increasing Human Preference

Presenter: Joshua Benoit, Professor, University of Cincinnati

Dr. Benoit’s research centers on the integrative physiology of arthropods, particularly stress tolerance, dormancy-induced changes, reproduction, and sleep processes using blood feeding (bed bug, mosquitoes, etc.) and non-blood feeding arthropod models. Dr. Benoit has published over 200 research papers on arthropod biology since 2003 with over 70 focused on blood feeding arthropods. Along with his publication record, Dr. Benoit has presented on over 180 occasions and received 43 scientific awards.

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Neurological and Cardiovascular Health Effects of Traffic-Related Air Pollution (TRAP)

Presenter: Anthony Wexler, PhD, Director, Air Quality Research Center and Distinguished Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Land, Air and Water Resources, UC Davis

Prof. Wexler’s research focuses on the atmospheric processing and health effects of air pollution. He obtained his Bachelor of Science degree at the University of California, Berkeley, Master’s of Science degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and PhD from the California Institute of Technology. His current research includes health effects of traffic-related air pollution, thermodynamics of highly concentrated aqueous solutions, developing instruments for measuring air toxics, and developing a wildfire early warning system.

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Presenter: Ryan Mooney-Bullock, Green Umbrella

An Interactive Look at Drought Management Tools and Public Health Impacts from Drought Events

Presenter: Sylvia Reeves

Sylvia is recently retired from her position with NOAA’s National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS) as a University of Colorado – Cooperative Institute for Research in the Environmental Sciences (CIRES) Senior Research Associate. Over the past five years, she worked as an applied scientist in the arena of drought monitoring and resilience. Based in Ithaca, New York, alongside Cornell’s Northeast Regional Climate Center (NRCC) team, her work focused on the impacts of drought on human health, infrastructure, energy, water supply, agriculture, and the tools available for response and resilience. Her duties also included the national roll out of NIDIS’s Drought and Public Health Engagement and Preparedness strategy that was co developed with the University of Nebraska Medical Center’s Water Climate and Health program. Sylvia’s undergraduate degree is in atmospheric sciences from Cornell University (‘81) and her master’s degree is in science policy from North Carolina State University (’06). Her work history includes service in the US Air Force, broadcast meteorology, private sector custom forecasting and systems marketing, emergency management, and public health emergency planning and response.

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Presenter: Courtney Woods, PhD, University of North Carolina

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Presenter: Nikolaus Mezger, Karolinska Institutet, Finland

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Presenter: Megan Herting, University of Southern California, Air Pollution and Brain Development

Long-term Holistic Climate Change and Layer on Some Emphasis/Discussion on Heat Stress and Resilience Measures

Presenter: Ray Yeager, PhD, University of Louisville

Dr. Yeager is a health geographer focused on research needed for building healthier urban environments. His research is centered on the roles of urban contexts, greenspaces, and climate change interactions to influence cardiometabolic health. At the University of Louisville Christina Lee Brown Envirome Institute, he leads geospatial approaches that link cohort data, remote sensing, environmental monitoring, and neighborhood contexts to quantify exposure–health pathways and guide implementation. Beyond research, he works with organizations including The Nature Conservancy, the Arbor Day Foundation, and the U.S. Forest Service to translate scientific findings into effective policies and interventions. He is a member of the American Geophysical Union, National Institutes of Health Climate Change and Health Research Coordinating Center Community of Practice, and International Society of Environmental Epidemiology (ISEE) where he serves on the ISEE Communications Committee and chairs the ISEE North America Chapter Policy Committee.

The Human Exposome and Future Health

Presenter: Dean Jones, PhD, Emory University

Dean P. Jones, PhD, is Professor of Medicine and Director of the Clinical Biomarkers Laboratory at Emory University. He has formal training in nutrition, chemistry, biochemistry, and molecular toxicology, and more than 40 years directing an academic research program on nutritional biochemistry, redox biology and human health. Over the past decade, he advanced the use of ultra-high resolution mass spectrometry for high-throughput metabolomics and, through collaborative research, has applied this to a broad range of human exposome research. This research established methods to simultaneously measure metabolites in most metabolic pathways, as well as thousands of environmental chemicals, dietary, microbiome and related metabolites, in human plasma and urine. Through development of advanced computational methods, these approaches now provide affordable platforms for the human exposome, precision nutrition and medicine, and biomonitoring of diet, dietary supplements, personal use products and environmental chemical exposures. He has published over 500 peer-reviewed research articles and these papers have been cited more than 80,000 times.

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Presenter: Holly Elser, MD, PhD, MPH, University of Pennsylvania

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Presenter: Amy Padula, PhD, University of California-San Francisco

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Presenter: Melissa Furlong, PhD, University of Arizona

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Presenter: Emily S. Barrett, PhD, Rutgers University

Wildfire Smoke Exposure Science: Challenges, Insights, and Future Directions

Presenter: Diana Rohlman, PhD. Associate Professor (Sr. Research), Department of Environmental and Molecular Toxicology, Oregon State University

Dr. Diana Rohlman is an Associate Professor (Sr. Researcher) in the Department of Environmental and Molecular Toxicology at Oregon State University (OSU). She leads the Community Engagement Cores for the Pacific Northwest Center for Translational Environmental Health Research and the OSU Superfund Research Center. Her research lies in the nexus of environmental health, exposure science, and research translation, with a focus on enhancing public understanding of environmental health risks. She collaborates with interdisciplinary teams to address complex challenges—like chemical exposures from disasters and the health effects of air pollution—using community-engaged research approaches that ensure research is responsive to the needs of impacted communities. Her lab is committed to the ethical report-back of research results (RBRR), connecting research results with actionable exposure reduction and mitigation efforts.

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Presenter: Manish Arora, PhD, Mount Sinai

When Extreme Weather Disrupts Cancer Care: The Time to Build Resilient Cancer Programs is Now

Presenter: Stacy Stanifer, PhD, University of Kentucky

Stacy Stanifer, PhD, APRN, AOCNS® is an Advanced Practice Registered Nurse, Oncology Clinical Nurse Specialist, and Assistant Professor at the University of Kentucky College of Nursing. Dr. Stanifer’s research examines how extreme weather events disrupt cancer care and strives to discover innovative methods of creating resilient cancer programs that can plan, prepare, respond, and adapt to extreme weather-related threats. Dr. Stanifer also leads community-engaged and citizen science initiatives aimed at reducing cancer risk by addressing environmental exposures, particularly radon, the second leading cause of lung cancer. Dr. Stanifer is a member of the UK Markey Cancer Center Cancer Prevention and Control Group, co-leads the Community Engagement Core of the UK Center for Appalachian Research in Environmental Sciences, serves on the research board of the Indoor Environments Association, is President of the Bluegrass Oncology Nursing Society, and represents public health on the Kentucky Board of Radon Safety.

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Presenter: Gen Merideth, MD, Cornell University