PBC Conference 2024

Dr Stephania Cormier is the Wiener Chair Professor of biological sciences at Louisiana State University and Pennington Biomedical Research Center. In addition, Dr Cormier is an honorary professor in child health at the University of Queensland, is the current chair of the Board of Directors of the Pacific Basin Consortium for Environment and Health.

Dr Cormier’s research focuses on the effect of exposure to environmental factors early in life on the predisposition for respiratory diseases in adults. Additionally, she was instrumental in responding to the emergence of COVID-19, heading the testing lab that serviced 18 facilities and first responders across Louisiana in the first months of the pandemic. As the director of the LSU Superfund Research Center, she is responsible for the coordination of several programs aimed at bettering public health for environmental mediated disease and pathologies. Through her work, she builds resilience in the communities through public engagement of those most at-risk - especially living near superfund sites where hazardous wastes are remediated and/or environmental exposures are more frequent.

Her research has continued to shed light on the initiators of the immune and pathophysiological changes that occur during early stages of pulmonary airway disease to ultimately develop effective interventions and therapies. As such, Dr Cormier is uniquely situated at the nidus of basic, translational, and operational support research.

Professor Peter Sly is a former Chairman of the Board of Directors for the Pacific Basin Consortium for the Environment and Health, Director, Children’s Health and Environment Program and Director, WHO Collaborating Centre for Children’s Health and Environment. Professor Sly is a NHMRC Senior Principal Research Fellow and a paediatric respiratory physician with extensive research experience in respiratory physiology, developmental immunology and children’s environmental health.

Professor Sly’s research aims to understand the mechanisms underlying chronic childhood lung diseases in order to improve clinical management and to delay or prevent their onset, with consequent reductions in adult lung diseases. A combination of basic science, longitudinal cohort studies and translation of research findings into clinical practice, including clinical trials, are included in three main areas: children’s environmental health, asthma, and cystic fibrosis.

Rebecca Christofferson is an Associate Professor in the Department of Pathobiological Sciences at the LSU School of Veterinary Medicine. She graduated from College of Science with a BS in Zoology and the College of Agriculture with a Master of Applied Statistics, both at LSU. She then went on to receive her PhD from the LSU SVM, focusing on disease transmission of mosquito-borne viruses. Her current research focuses on the factors that define the (re)emergence of arboviruses and zoonotic viruses, especially environmental determinants of transmission trajectories. She uses a combination of laboratory, field, and computational methods to interrogate assumptions made about emergent pathogen transmission.

She has worked during outbreaks, such as the Zika virus outbreak in 2015/16 and Rift Valley Fever in 2018 Rwanda and COVID-19. In addition, Dr. Christofferson translates her research into operational support through grassroots education, media engagements, and as a subject matter expert for infection control, biosafety, and biosecurity both domestically and internationally.

Dr Diana Lewis (she/her) is a member of the Sipekne’katik Mi’kmaq First Nation in Nova Scotia. She is an Assistant Professor and Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Environmental Health Governance at the University of Guelph. Her research interests are to foster a wider understanding of Indigenous worldviews and how Indigenous worldviews must inform environmental decisions, specifically as Indigenous peoples are impacted by resource or industrial development. She is a strong advocate for Indigenous data sovereignty and Indigenous-led decision making, and she is currently working with Indigenous communities across Canada to develop an Indigenous-led environmental health risk assessment approach.

Dr Antonio Pascale is Medical Toxicologist, current Professor of the Biomedical Science Center, University of Montevideo. His academic appointments include being Associate Professor of Clinical Toxicology at the School of Medicine, University of the Republic, in Montevideo, Uruguay between May 2013 and February 2021. He is the Director of the National Center for Information and Reference of the Drug Network (National Drug Treatment Center in Montevideo) since October 2020 and also Director of the Toxicology Service of the National Direction of Police Health, Ministry of Interior, since September 2014.

As a physician he assesses and treats patients with acute poisonings and chronic intoxications related to occupational and environmental exposures. His activities include the assessment of pesticides exposure in children and workers, as well as the diagnosis and treatment of pesticides related diseases. He also focused his research in e-waste exposure, health effects, treatment and prevention. His work also includes the consequences of the environmental and non intentional exposure of cocaine and cannabis in children.

Dr Ali has spent the last 25 years working as a public health doctor, manager and in various leadership roles in civil service, public sector and international organisations. Following initial clinical posts in teaching hospitals, and civil service role as a District Medical Officer of Health and Director of Health Services in Ghana, he worked in international humanitarian emergency response with the lead UK medical emergency agency - Merlin as a strategist, turnaround director, and led global emergency response teams working in Afghanistan, Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Zimbabwe, Eastern European countries, and the UK.

Dr Ali has worked as an executive director of public health for 10 years in the NHS as a joint appointee with 3 different English local authorities. His previous and current job roles involve managing large-scale public health programmes, strategic partnerships, and developing policies, leading response to public health emergencies and disease outbreaks with multidisciplinary teams. A major part of his role includes supporting local authority public health planning and undertaking staff training in diverse settings. Over the last 3 years, Dr Ali has been working in Small Island Developing States to strengthen health systems, first on the remote island of St Helena in the South Atlantic as the Director of the Health Service for the island and now in the Pacific, leading the WHO Health Systems Unit for the sub-region.

Dr Dwan Vilcins is the Group Leader Environmental Epidemiology at the Children’s Health and Environment Program at The University of Queensland. Dr Vilcins’ and her team explore the effect of environmental exposures on children’s health, with a current focus on air pollution, environmentally persistent free radicals, green space and plastic chemicals.

Dr Vilcins leads the NHMRC funded EMBER study exploring the effect of bushfire smoke on health outcomes. In addition to her PhD and Master of Public Health, Dr Vilcins has a background in nutrition. Currently Dr Vilcins is a fellow of the International Society for Children’s Health and the Environment, a board member for the Pacific Basin Consortium for Environment and Health, an advisor to Breath Melbourne, and is an advocate for the Greener Spaces Better Places initiative.

Kyoung-Woong Kim received his Bsc/MSc from Seoul National University in Republic of Korea and Ph.D. from the Imperial College London in the U.K. He is a Professor of Environmental Geochemistry at School of Earth Sciences and Environmental Engineering since 1997 and has been a Dean of International and Public Affairs and Director of International Environmental Research Institute (IERI) at Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST) in Korea.

His research interests are environmental monitoring and risk assessment, and the remediation of contaminated soil and groundwater. Prof. Kim has got more than 240 papers at the international SCI journal and is currently member of editorial board at several international journals including Scientific Reports and Environ. Geochem. & Health.

Professor Murugesan Velayutham is a former Vice-Chancellor, Annamalai University, Chidambaram, India and Emeritus Board Member of the Pacific Basin Consortium. Professor Murugesan is presently an Emeritus Professor and advisor at Crescent University, Chennai, India.

His major research interest includes semiconductor photocatalytic materials for pollution abatement, remediation of heavy metal pollution using nanocomposites, and microporous - mesoporous catalytic materials for fine chemical synthesis. Prof. Murugesan has more than 200 research articles in SCI journals and conference proceedings to his credit. He has good citation index for his publications, and his present h-index is 59. He has been awarded the Thomson Reuters India citation award 2012. Prof. Murugesan has been awarded STA and JSPS fellowships of Japan.

He has established excellent research links with Universities and Institutes within India and also established international research collaboration in Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Russia, Germany and Italy. Prof. Murugesan successfully completed funded projects from Government of India funding agencies as well as International collaborative projects.

Jason Lee is an Associate Professor at the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore. He co-leads the Human Potential Translational Research Programme and directs the Heat Resilience and Performance Centre. Jason co-chairs the Heat Injury Clinical Practice Guidelines at the Ministry of Health, Singapore and chairs the Scientific Committee on Thermal Factors at the International Commission on Occupational Health. He is on the management committee at the Global Heat Health Information Network and leads the WHO-WMO Southeast Asia Heat Health Node to scale up efforts in managing the complex health risks posed by rising heat.

Atsuko Ikeda, PhD is a professor, Faculty of Health Sciences, and adjunct faculty of Center for Environmental Health Sciences and One Health Research Center, Hokkaido University. Dr. Ikeda's research expertise are environmental epidemiology, focusing chemical exposures and health especially among children.

Renae McBrien is the Sustainability Consultant for Children’s Health Queensland. She also works as a radiographer, with over 23 years of clinical health experience. Renae has been instrumental to deliver a widespread staff culture change that drives a diverse resource recovery strategy. This sustainable strategy removes over 500 tonnes from landfill every year through a 40 single stream recycling program that supports local recycling and critical International Aid to build health equity in the Pacific Island communities.

Renae's work delivers environmental sustainability with the mutual benefit of financial sustainability, by generating over $1.2 million of revenue and savings and has recently been featured on the ABC War on Waste TV series, which captured over 4 million views worldwide. She has awarded 2019 and 2020 Brisbane City Council Waste Innovation Award and is the 2022 Brisbane “All Star - Lifetime achievement” Waste recipient. The CHQ Sustainability program has won the Clinical Excellence award and was a finalist for the 2022 Qld Premiers Award.

Naohiro Kato is an LSU associate professor at the Department of Biological Sciences. He received his PhD from Hiroshima University in Japan, focusing on applied plant molecular biology.

His interests in basic sciences include cell tactic responses, systems biology of the cell, and luminescence technology. His interest in applied sciences is microalgal farming to solve social problems. In 2022, his laboratory produced biodegradable plastic necklaces made with microalgae that were given to the public during Mardi Gras in New Orleans, Louisiana. He is the president of Microalgae LLC, which was established to initiate Louisiana's microalgae industry.

Prof. RENGARAJ SELVARAJ., Ph.D., FRSC, is a Professor of Chemistry in the Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat, Oman with responsibility for teaching, research and consultancy in the field of Nanotechnology, Analytical and Applied Environmental Chemistry.

He has 30 years of research experience in Analytical, Materials, Environmental Science and Engineering, particularly in the area of Photocatalysis, Environmental Nanotechnology, wastewater treatment, water quality analysis, and solid waste management. He has published more than 100 research articles in reputed National, International Journals, and Proceedings (h-index 36) and has been serving as an editorial board member of some International Journals.

Recently his name has been ranked top 2% of the best researcher around the world by Stanford University, USA (Published in the Year 2020 and 2021). Recently University of South Africa, Johannesburg appointed Prof. Rengaraj as Professor Extraordinarius as honorary position and also Prof. Rengaraj has received Eminent Scientist Award from Indian Council of Chemists in the year 2023.

Thomas Boissiere-O’Neill, PharmD is a Doctor of Pharmacy and a PhD student at the Children’s Health and Environment Program at the University of Queensland. His previous works was focused on perinatal (pharmaco) epidemiology and drug safety monitoring.

Currently, Thomas is focusing his research on endocrine-disrupting chemicals, particularly phthalates and bisphenols. He is interested in understanding how exposure to these chemicals during pregnancy and childhood can influence children’s respiratory health and their propensity to develop allergic diseases.

Brittany Trottier is a Health Specialist with the Superfund Research Program (SRP) at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. She provides program analysis and support of SRP activities, supports communication of SRP grantees’ scientific accomplishments, and serves as the lead for SRP community engagement activities.

She provides guidance to potential applicants for SRP’s Conference Grants and oversees the Conference Grant portfolio for SRP. She supports the NIEHS-WHO Collaborating Center (NIEHS-WHO CC) lead for Children’s Environmental Health and the NIEHS WHO-CC Children’s Environmental Health Network. She received her Master’s in Public Health from the Milken Institute School of Public Health of The George Washington University and a Bachelor’s Degree in Chemistry from Adrian College.

Dr.S.Rajamani is an United Nations Expert in Environmental Science & Engineering with specialization in occupational health, industrial and hazardous waste management. He is a Doctorate in Environmental Engineering, Gold Medallist in his Bachelor of Engineering Degree and First Rank holder in his Masters Degree in Environmental Engineering.

He is a former Director of CSIR-CLRI, Government of India and served as the Technical Committee / Board Member for the Ph.D., program of Anna University. He is an active member of Pacific Basin Consortium (PBC) for the past 30 years and participated in most of the international conferences organized by PBC and presented scientific & technical papers.

Dr. Le Thai Ha is Deputy Director of Vietnam Health Environmental Agency (VIHEMA), Ministry of Health Vietnam.

She has 30 years working experiences in charge of Environmental Health Community, Children Environmental Health, Climate change, Air Pollution, water and wastewater management.

She is a Vietnam MOH’ Focal points to the ATACH, JLN Climate-Smart Health Systems Collaborative of WB as well as Children Environmental Health Collaborative of UNICEF.

She is a National consultant of WHO, UNICEF, UNDP in climate change, water quality, air pollution and Children Environmental Health in Viet Nam

Improving living condition for both human and environmental is her ambition in working.

Dr. Ayaho Yamamoto is the Group Leader of Laboratory Science at the Children's Health and Environment Program, Child Health Research Centre, the University of Queensland. Her research focuses on understanding the mechanistic links between environmental exposures and adverse respiratory outcomes. In particular, she focuses on the cellular responses following air pollution exposure and/or viral infection on human respiratory epithelium, and the age differences in immune defence mechanisms. Investigate on early intervention strategies with dietary antioxidants to improve respiratory health and reduce the risk of long-term chronic diseases.