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Shannon Guillot-Wright, PhD, is an Assistant Professor and Vice Chair of Research and Health Policy in the Department of Family Medicine and Director of Health Policy Research at the Center for Violence Prevention, University of Texas Medical Branch. Her research focuses on structural violence, with a particular focus on occupational health equity and the use of evidence in policymaking. She is particularly interested in understanding power, influence, and social change. Dr. Guillot-Wright has received extensive funding for her work, which has been published in international and national journals as well as featured in news and print media.

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Dr. Austin received her Doctor of Science in Environmental Health from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, with concentrations in Exposure Assessment and Biostatistics. Her expertise areas and past work include multi-pollutant exposure metrics, geographic information systems, remote sensing, risk communication in farm-worker communities and the development and evaluation of data visualization tools. A number of her projects leverage novel applications of emerging technologies to improve worker health and safety, particularly in WA State agricultural workers and their families. In her ongoing work, she aims to develop methods to jointly investigate exposures to mixtures of pollutants on human health, deploy low-cost methods to assess environmental exposures and implement novel intervention studies with the goal of improving community and worker health, with a particular focus on under-studied populations.

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Dr. Quirós-Alcalá received her undergraduate degree in Biomedical Engineering and her Master of Science degree in Safety Engineering/Industrial Hygiene both from Texas A&M University. She then received her PhD from the University of California at Berkeley in Environmental Health Sciences. She has worked in industry, government, and academia. Currently, she is an Assistant Professor at Johns Hopkins University in the Department of Environmental Health and Engineering. As an exposure scientist and environmental epidemiologist, Dr. Quirós-Alcalá seeks to conduct novel translational exposure science research to better understand exposure-response relationships. Dr. Quirós-Alcalá’s research focuses on characterizing environmental exposures to endocrine disrupting agents and examining their potential health risks on highly vulnerable, low-income and marginalized populations historically underrepresented and understudied in public health research, including occupational populations, pregnant women and women of reproductive age, and children. The goal of her research is to inform the development of public health policies and practices and to identify potential interventions that aim to reduce environmental exposures, and eliminate exposure and health disparities to improve health in these populations.

Director of Exposure Control Technologies Research
CPWR – The Center for Construction Research and Training

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Dr. Memarian is the Director of Exposure Control Technologies Research at CPWR – The Center for Construction Research and Training. He currently leads a NIOSH-funded project titled “Prevention through Augmented Pre-Task Planning” that aims to enhance the quality of Job Hazard Analysis (JHA) and Pre-task Planning in construction, particularly in Electrical Construction. He holds a Ph.D. in Construction Management from Arizona State University and a M.S. in Civil Engineering with a concentration in Construction Engineering & Project Management. His research interest involves development of high-reliability work systems with a focus on safety & health, risk assessment, and performance improvement. He is an active member of the American Society of Safety Professionals (ASSP). He is also a Certified Safety Professional (CSP) and Construction Health and Safety Technician (CHST).

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CAPT Ryan Hill is the Director of the NIOSH Western States Division (WSD) where he leads a diverse group of scientists who conduct research and prevention activities focused on high-risk industries and occupations in the western United States, such as commercial fishing and other maritime industries, wildland firefighters, and oil and gas extraction workers. Ryan received a bachelor’s degree in Anthropology and a master’s degree in Public Health. He was commissioned as a U.S. Public Health Service officer in 1998 where he worked for the Indian Health Service in Alaska as an Injury Prevention Specialist focused on injury research and prevention activities in tribal communities. Ryan joined NIOSH in 2007 working as an injury epidemiologist in the Alaska office and has served in multiple roles since then. In addition to serving as the WSD Director, he also serves as Manager of the NIOSH Oil and Gas Extraction Sector Program and co-chair of the NORA Oil and Gas Extraction Council. Ryan helped to establish the NIOSH Oil and Gas Extraction Sector program in 2008 and has served as the Manager of that program since 2011. The program’s research team has identified several important and previously unrecognized workplace hazards and have worked closely with the industry and other partners to implement solutions to improve working conditions for oil and gas extraction workers.

Advanced Technologies and Laboratories (ATL) International, Inc.

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Dr. Paul Schulte is a consultant and former Director of the Division of Science Integration and Co-Manager of the Nanotechnology Research Center at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). Dr. Schulte has 47 years of experience in conducting research and developing guidance on occupational cancer, nanomaterials, risk communication, workplace well-being, and genetics. He also has examined the convergence of occupational safety and health and green chemistry and sustainability. He is the co-editor of the textbook, Molecular Epidemiology: Principles and Practices. Dr. Schulte has served as guest editor of the Journal of Occupational Medicine and the American Journal of Industrial Medicine and was on the initial editorial board of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention.  He is currently on the International Advisory Board of the Annals of Occupational Hygiene. Dr. Schulte has developed various frameworks for addressing the aging workforce, burden of occupational disease and injury, well-being of the workforce, climate change and translation research.

Center Director; Distinguished University Professor
Center for Health, Work and Environment

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Lee S. Newman, MD, MA, FACOEM, FCCP, Fellow Colleg. Ramazzini, is Distinguished University Professor at the University of Colorado, working in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health and Department of Epidemiology at the Colorado School of Public Health, and in the Department of Medicine in the School of Medicine. He is founding director of both the Center for Health, Work & Environment, which is one of the 10 NIOSH-supported Total Worker Health Centers of Excellence, and of the Mountain & Plains Education and Research Center, which is one of the 18 NIOSH-supported Education and Research Centers. Under a NIOSH agreement, Dr. Newman has contributed to the analysis of technologies addressing mental health of health workers. Dr. Newman is recognized as both an OSH educator and for his scientific and practical contributions to occupational safety and health, Total Worker Health, small enterprise OSH, immunotoxicology, biomarker development, occupational lung disease prevention and treatment, beryllium health effects, health informatics, medical surveillance, and intervention science, and internationally on the epidemic of chronic kidney disease of unknown cause. He has authored more than 225 scientific papers and over 120 books, chapters, and monographs.

Professor and the Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at the University of Washington School of Nursing

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Dr. Butch de Castro is a Professor and the Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at the University of Washington School of Nursing, where he also serves as Director of the Occupational Health Nursing Training Program. His research focuses on worker health inequities and inequalities by examining how employment opportunities, job conditions, and work organization contribute to chronic stress and occupational injury and illness risk; with emphasis on utilizing longitudinal analyses, biomarkers, large survey datasets, and engagement with minoritized groups.

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Jay Vietas is the Chief, Emerging Technologies in the Division of Sciences Integration at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.  He leads a team of scientists in the study of emerging technologies on worker health and practical application of this knowledge.  This includes research on the use of advanced materials, synthetic biology and biomanufacturing, and artificial intelligence.

Prior to joining NIOSH in 2020, Jay served as a senior medical leader in the United States Air Force, developing policy in support of operations for 2,400 allied health officers delivering care in 75 treatment facilities.

Jay obtained his PhD from the University of Cincinnati in Environmental Health, graduate degrees in environmental health and engineering from Colorado State University, and an undergraduate degree in Chemistry from the United States Air Force Academy.  Jay is a Certified Industrial Hygienist, a Certified Safety Professional and a member of the American Industrial Hygiene Association.

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Dr. Laura Syron is an epidemiologist in NIOSH’s Western States Division. She earned an MPH in International Health and a PhD in Environmental and Occupational Health from Oregon State University. As an undergraduate, she studied abroad in Quito, Ecuador and completed an internship in Santiago, Chile. During her MPH program, she interned with Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide. While completing her dissertation on safety and health in Alaska’s seafood processing industry, she began working with NIOSH in Anchorage, Alaska, before transferring to Spokane, Washington. Currently, within NIOSH’s Research Program Portfolio, she is an Assistant Program Coordinator for both the Center for Maritime Safety and Health Studies and the Occupational Health Equity Program.