Authors

Tracey Woodruff, PhD, MPHTracey is the Director of, and Alison S. Carlson Endowed Professor for, the UCSF Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment (PRHE) and is a Professor in the UCSF Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences and the Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies. She is a recognized expert on environmental pollution exposures and impacts on health, with a focus on pregnancy, infancy and childhood, and her innovations in translating and communicating scientific findings for clinical and policy audiences. She has authored numerous scientific publications and book chapters, and has been quoted widely in the press, including USA Today, the San Francisco Chronicle and The New York Times. Before joining UCSF, Dr. Woodruff was a senior scientist and policy advisor for the U.S. EPA’s Office of Policy. She is an Associate Editor of Environmental Health Perspectives. She was appointed by the governor of California in 2012 to the Science Advisory Board of the Developmental and Reproductive Toxicant (DART) Identification Committee.

Nicholas Chartres, PhD leads the Science & Policy team at PRHE, which monitors and analyzes federal, state, and local chemical policy, including EPA’s implementation of the Toxic Substances Control Act, the law that evaluates and regulates industrial chemicals used in U.S. commerce. He has extensive experience in the use of systematic review methods and leads PRHE’s work in disseminating and implementing these methods to improve evidence evaluation in the environmental health sciences and ensure the best available science is used for policy decision making. As the lead author of the first in-depth study on how industry sponsorship influences nutrition research, he is an expert in identifying and analyzing industry influence and developing methods to reduce industry bias in the research process. In addition to his work at PRHE, Dr. Chartres is part of the World Health Organization/International Labor Organization (WHO/ILO) Joint Estimates Working Group examining global work-related burden of disease and injury.

Courtney Cooper, MPH is a Science Associate for the Science & Policy team at PRHE, working to promote evidence-based decision making and best practices for systematic reviews in environmental health. She graduated with a BS in Public Health and Minor in Dance from the University of South Carolina and received an MPH from the University of San Francisco. She is interested in advancing maternal, reproductive, and environmental health. 

Swati Rayasam, MSc is a Science Associate for the Science & Policy team at PRHE. She has been one of the leads on the team for PRHE’s work to ensure EPA’s implementation of the Toxic Substances Control Act protects the health of communities disproportionately impacted by toxic chemical pollution such as BIPOC, low-income populations, incarcerated populations, and people with disabilities. She earned her MSc in Global Health and the Environment from the University of California, Berkeley’s School of Public Health and her BS in Biology from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Past contributors

Max Aung, PhD, MPH is a former Associate Research Scientist for PRHE. He is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine in the Department of Population and Public Health Sciences. Max’s research focuses on applying data science methods to investigate the impact of environmental pollution on child and maternal health to inform and pursue environmental justice.

Hongtai Huang, PhD is a former Postdoctoral Scholar for PRHE, and was jointly affiliated with the UCSF Institute for Computational Health Sciences. Prior to joining UCSF, he was a postdoctoral data scientist at the US EPA. Hongtai received his PhD in Environmental Health Engineering and Master’s degree in Environmental Economics and Management from the Johns Hopkins University.

Trish Koman, MPP, PhD has been an advocate for public health protection for over 25 years as a scientist at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. She is also the founder and President of Green Barn Research Associates, a non-profit specializing in science, policy and communication. She earned a masters degree in public policy from the University of California at Berkeley and a Ph.D. in Environmental Health Sciences at the University of Michigan.

Veena Singla, PhD is a former Associate Director of Science & Policy at PRHE. She specializes in the communication of complex scientific information at the intersection of research and policy, and has led work on groundbreaking policies which attempt to establish frameworks for safer chemical evaluation and substitution. She worked as a postdoctoral teaching fellow at Stanford University and as an adjunct faculty member at the University of San Francisco. She holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Berkeley, and a PhD in cell biology from the University of California, San Francisco.

Julia Varshavsky, PhD is former Postdoctoral Scientist for PRHE. She is currently a professor of health sciences at Northeastern University in Boston, MA, and an environmental heath scientist and environmental epidemiologist who cares about protecting the public from environmental chemical exposures.

 

Aolin Wang, PhD is a former Postdoctoral Scholar for PRHE and for the UCSF Bakar Computational Health Sciences Institute. Prior to joining UCSF, she obtained her PhD in epidemiology and has extensive training in statistical modeling at University of California, Los Angeles.