Environmental Health Sciences Fall 2022 Newsletter

Faculty Awards and News

Dr. Erin Bell was appointed as the Interim Assistant Vice President for Research in the Office of Regulatory Research Compliance for the Fall semester. In this temporary role, she oversaw the development of new policies related to research compliance.

Dr. David Carpenter was awarded the Fall 2022 Terra Award for exemplary achievements in sustainability at the University at Albany on November 30. 

Dr. David Lawrence was awarded an R33 for MIS-C biomarker analysis. He is a co-PI on the award. His team also presented the following posters at the 24^th Annual Upstate NY Immunology Conference on October 17-20. (*indicates students/scholar’s participation):

• Aishwarya Jadhav, David Lawrence, William Lee, Juan Salazar, Kathy Herbst, Alex Hogan, Joerg Graf, Brandon O’Sullivan, Eduardo Lopez-Medina, and Catalina De La Cruz. Genetic and Exposome Influence on COVID-19 Immunity: A Connecticut and Colombian Comparison  
• Michele Maltz-Matyschsyk, Clare Melchiorre, Kathy Herbst, Alex Hogan, Kristina Dibble, Broandon O’Sullivan, Joerg Graf, Aishwarya Jadhav, David Lawrence, William Lee, Juan Salazar, and Michael Lynes. Development of a Biomarker Signature using Grating-coupled Fluorescence Plasmonics Microarray for Diagnosis of MIS-C  
• James McCardle*, David Carpenter, and David Lawrence. Proteomics Profiling of Membrane and Cytosolic Fractions from Naïve CD4+ T-cells for Cysteine-thiol Target Identification in Th1/Th2 Differentiation.

Dr. Shao Lin was awarded $1.5 million from the National Institute on Aging to study weather extremes, natural disasters, and health outcomes among vulnerable older adults.

• She also participated in reviews for the NIEHS Center Grant (P30) and the Training grant (T32) Study Sections as an appointed member in October 2022 and November 2022, respectively, and was interviewed by Healio Nephrology. 

Dr. Lin was also invited to give the following talks: 

• “Utilizing Data science methods to environmental health research.” (UAlbany AI Symposium)
• “Climate Change, Winter Storm and Extreme Cold Weather on Human Health in NYSCDC” (Disaster Epidemiology Community of Practice Meeting by the CDC)
• “Aging and climate change and natural disasters”. (Healthy Aging Initiative Symposium)
• "How climate change, extreme weather, and disasters affect human health in New York State, USA." (Invited featured speech at the International Conference on Environment and Human Health, Hong Kong)
• "Demographic and symptom disparities of COVID-19 deaths between health care workers and other population in the United States." (Invited speaker at the International Conference on Environment and Human Health, Hong Kong)

Dr. Lin's group also presented at several conferences.

Dr. Xiaobo Xue Romeiko served as a panelist for the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

Dr. Kai Zhang received $2.17 million from the National Institute on Aging to study the underlying biological mechanisms between social determinants of health and cardiovascular disease (CVD), the leading cause of death in the U.S. that disproportionately affects Black communities.

Additionally, Dr. Zhang recently accepted the invitation to become Associate Editor of the Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology (Impact Factor: 6.371), which is the official journal of the International Society of Exposure Science. His work was also shared in the Times Union. 

Recent Environmental Health Sciences Publications

• View list of publications

Student/Post Doc Awards and News

• Han Liu (Research Assistant - Shao Lin) received the Stewart E. Tolnay Outstanding Graduate Student Research Paper Award from the Center for Social and Demographic Analysis at the University at Albany.
• Jordan McAdam (PhD Candidate - Erin Bell) was quoted by Spectrum News.
• Tianhong Mu (Trainee - Xiaobo Xue Romeiko) presented at the ISSST (International Symposium on Sustainable Systems and Technologies) in Pittsburgh and at the AEESP conference in St Louis.
• Quan Qi (Research Assistant - Shao Lin) was awarded the Karen R. Hitchcock New Frontiers Fund, one of the Initiatives for Women awards (IFW). Quan also was awarded the Pong Lee Award as recognition of excellence in research for a third-year paper.
• Fatim Sannoh's (PhD Candidate – Haider Khwaja) paper, "State of gaseous air pollutants and resulting health effects in Karachi, Pakistan", was recently accepted for publication in Environmental Monitoring and Assessment.
• Mariana Torres (PhD Candidate - Beth Feingold) co-presented with Dr. Christine Bozlak as a guest lecturer in the HPM Health Policy Analysis class. She has been actively participating in activities within the Multiscale RECIPES network and since the summer, she has been part of the RECIPES Students Convergence facilitator team. As a part of this team, she has coordinated a workshop focused on food waste with Drs. Andrea Borghini and Nicola Piras from the Culinary Mind Center for the Philosophy of Food research center at the University of Milan and the RECIPES student group, presented the ReFED Insights Engine to RECIPES students, a database containing food surplus and waste related data for the U.S., led a discussion about date labeling policies, coordinated a food policy workshop with food policy experts that emphasized opportunities to address food waste in the 2023 Farm Bill, and was highlighted as a "RECIPES Champion".

Alumni News

• Christina Cloutier, MPH 2022, has been working at a Research Scientist 2 at the NYS Office of Cannabis Management since June.
• Eun Kyung Lee (Mentor - Xiaobo Xue Romeiko) published an article titled, “Residential proximity to biorefinery sources of air pollution and respiratory diseases in New York State” in Environmental Science and Technology in 2021. This article was selected as one of two runners up in the category of ‘Science’ article in the 2021 Environmental Science & Technology Best Paper Awards. This paper stems from her dissertation research.
• Omosehin Moyebi (Mentor - Haider Khwaja) is currently a teaching faculty fellow and Frederick Douglass Scholar in the Department of Health, College of Health Sciences, West Chester University of Pennsylvania. He is teaching Humans and the Environment, Solid and Hazardous Waste, and Occupational Safety. He also presented the Frederick Douglass Scholar Public Lecture in November and has a publication, “State of Gaseous Air Pollutants and Resulting Health Effects in Karachi, Pakistan”, accepted for Environmental Monitoring and Assessment. Dr. Moyebi also received a $1,500 professional development grant from the Department of Health.
• Stacey Pettigrew (Mentor - Beth Feingold) published an article titled, “Adult Exposures to Toxic Trace Elements as Measured in Nails along the Interoceanic Highway in the Peruvian Amazon” in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.
• Erika Scott (Mentor - Erin Bell) was named as the Journal of Agromedicine “Peer Reviewer of the Year” 2023.