Depending on the number of registered participants some or all of the following will be the speakers/facilitators for this workshop – Bette Meek, Vicki Dellarco, Kevin Crofton, Penny Fenner-Crisp, Jennifer Seed, and Doug Wolf. All of the facilitators have been leaders in the development of MOA human relevance analysis and have extensive experience in its practical use.
Bette Meek
Ms. Meek has a background in toxicology receiving her M.Sc. in Toxicology (with distinction) from the University of Surrey, U.K. She is currently the Associate Director of Chemical Risk Assessment at the McLaughlin Centre for Population Health Risk Assessment, University of Ottawa, on interchange from Health Canada. She has extensive experience in the management of chemical assessment programs within the Government of Canada, most recently involving development and implementation of process and methodology for the health assessment of Existing Substances under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act (CEPA) including the precedent setting mandate to categorize and screen priorities from among the 23,000 substances included on the Domestic Substances List. Prior to managing the Existing Substances program, Ms. Meek managed assessment programs for contaminants in drinking water and air.
With colleagues within Canada and internationally, she has contributed to or led initiatives to increase transparency, defensibility and efficiency in health risk assessment, having convened and participated in initiatives in this area for numerous organizations including the International Programme on Chemical Safety, the World Health Organization, the International Life Sciences Institute, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the U.S. National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences. Relevant areas have included frameworks for weight of evidence analysis including mode of action, chemical specific adjustment factors, physiologically-based pharmacokinetic modeling and predictive modeling.
She has also authored over 150 publications in the area of chemical risk assessment and received several awards for contribution in this domain.
Vicki Dellarco, Ph.D.
Dr. Vicki Dellarco received her Ph.D. in genetics from Iowa State University in 1980, and then joined the EPA’s Office of Research and Development. She has been with EPA for 26 years, participating in the development of risk assessment guidelines and methodology, as well as the conduct of specific health risk assessments on environmental chemicals. Dr. Dellarco is a senior science advisor in the Health Effects Division in the Office of Pesticide Programs, where she has worked on several major activities including the development of common mechanism policy decisions, cumulative risk assessment methods and guidance, as well as the development of toxicity testing strategies for improving and refining approaches to health risk assessment. Dr. Dellarco serves as a WHO member of the Joint Meeting of Pesticide Residues, as a member of EPA’s Health Oversight Committee of the Risk Assessment Forum, and has been involved in ILSI/RSI and IPCS efforts to develop a Human Relevance/Mode of Action Framework for Cancer Risk Assessment. She also has presented teleseminars on the application of the Human Relevance MOA Framework to the SRA Dose-response Specialty Group and to an SOT Specialty Section.
Kevin Crofton, Ph.D.
Dr. Kevin M. Crofton received his Ph.D. in Toxicology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1986. He has been working for the past 20 years as a neurotoxicologist in the Office of Research and Development of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. His research interests include developmental neurotoxicity, with an emphasis on the use of mode-of-action models to study the impact of endocrine disruptors and the cumulative risk of thyroid disruptors and pesticides. He is an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Toxicology at North Carolina State University and the Curriculum in Toxicology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Crofton’s professional activities include membership in numerous scientific societies and participation on many professional review boards. He has presented invited lectures for a variety of government agencies in Europe, Canada, and the U.S., and for numerous professional societies and universities. In addition, he has authored or coauthored at least nine book chapters or reviews and over 100 peer reviewed publications.
Penny Fenner-Crisp, Ph.D.
Dr. Fenner-Crisp served as the Executive Director of the ILSI Risk Science Institute (RSI) from December 2000 until August 2004, following a 22-year career at US EPA. Her duties at EPA included nearly 12 years serving in several capacities as the Senior Science Advisor, Deputy Director and Director of the Health Effects Division of the Office of Pesticide Programs. Earlier assignments included serving as the Director of the Health and Environmental Review Division (HERD) of the Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics (OPPT) and Senior Toxicologist in the Health Effects Branch of the Office of Drinking Water (ODW). She played key roles in the development of many EPA risk assessment policies and practices primarily related to human health and was involved in the activities of several international organizations as an Expert on several WHO IPCS working groups, as a member of the WHO Expert Panel of the Joint Meeting on Pesticide Residues for nine years and as the lead U.S. Delegate to several workgroups of the OECD test guidelines program. In April, 2000, she received the Agency’s highest award, the Fitzhugh Green Award, for her contributions on behalf of EPA to its international activities.
Dr. Fenner-Crisp received her Ph.D. in Pharmacology from the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston and is a member and former officer of several professional scientific societies including of the Society of Toxicology and the Society for Risk Analysis. She has been a Diplomate of the American Board of Toxicology since 1984 and served on its Board of Directors from 2001-2005. She served on EPA’s Endocrine Disruptor Methods Validation Subcommittee from 2001-2004 and the Strategic Science Team of the American Chemistry Council’s Long-range Research Initiative from 2002-2005. Currently, she is a member of the Board of Directors of GreenBlue, the Drinking Water Committee of EPA’s Science Advisory Board and EPA's National Pollution Prevention and Toxics Advisory Committee. She also was a member of the National Academies of Sciences expert group which, in 2006, published a review of the Worker and Public Health Activities Program administered by the Department of Energy and the Department of Health and Human Services.
Jennifer Seed, Ph.D.
Dr. Jennifer Seed is a Branch Chief with the Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics, Risk Assessment Division, Existing Chemicals Assessment Branch of the U.S. EPA. Jennifer has been the lead for the Agency’s and the OECD’s hazard and risk assessment activities of PFOA and other perfluorinated compounds. In addition, she is actively involved in a number of activities, both within the EPA as well as with other organizations, that have focused on risk assessment issues. She is the chair of the human health effects subgroup of the Agency’s Risk Assessment Forum and has been involved in Agency efforts to harmonize cancer and noncancer approaches for risk assessment. She has been involved in the ILSI/RSI and IPCS efforts to develop a Human Relevance/Mode of Action Framework for Cancer and Non-cancer Risk Assessment. She has also been involved in the Agency and OECD efforts to develop and harmonize test guidelines and risk assessment guidelines for developmental and reproductive toxicity. Jennifer received a PhD in developmental biology from the University of Washington.
Douglas C. Wolf, D.V.M., Ph.D., Fellow IATP, ATS
Dr. Wolf is the Assistant Laboratory Director at the National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory U. S. EPA. Dr. Wolf graduated in 1981 from the University of Missouri with his D.V.M. and, after 6 years in clinical veterinary practice, he went to Purdue University where he completed his pathology residency and Ph.D in Veterinary Pathology in 1991. Doug was a staff scientist for 6 years at the Chemical Industry Institute of Toxicology (CIIT) where he studied chemical carcinogenesis. From 1997 until 2007 he was a principal investigator at the National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory (NHEERL) of the U. S. EPA where he continued his work in carcinogenesis and molecular pathology. Currently he is an Assistant Laboratory Director for NHEERL. Doug has authored or co-authored over 100 journal articles, book chapters, and technical reports and has presented his work at numerous scientific meetings. Doug is an adjunct faculty member at North Carolina State University; University of North Carolina; and the Virginia Polytechnic Institute. Doug has received awards for the best paper in Fundamental and Applied Toxicology from the Society of Toxicology, and Bronze medals from the U. S. EPA for his work on various risk assessment issues and a Gold Medal for his participation on the Perchlorate Risk Assessment team. Dr. Wolf sits on many working groups, committees, and scientific review organizations. He is a frequent member of pathology working groups for the National Toxicology Program at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, sits on the review board for risk assessments for Toxicology Excellence for Risk Assessment, reviews risk assessments for Health Canada, the National Center for Environmental Assessment/USEPA, and the Office of Pesticide Programs/USEPA. In 2004 Dr. Wolf was elected a Fellow of the International Academy of Toxicologic Pathologists and in 2007 elected as a Fellow of the Academy of Toxicological Sciences.