Petros Koutrakis

Based at HSPH, the Six Cities Study combined the best efforts of environmental epidemiologists and environmental science engineers. That kind of fruitful collaboration will continue with the new Exposure, Epidemiology, and Risk Program in the Department of Environmental Health. The program is a result of a merger of the Environmental Epidemiology and the Environmental Science and Engineering Programs. There has been a continuous stream of successful studies over the years due to the combined work of faculty and other researchers in these two programs and in other components of the Department of Environmental Health.

"Researchers and students in the Exposure, Epidemiology, and Risk Program will have an exciting opportunity to take a highly integrated approach to understanding environmental pollutants and related health risks," said HSPH Dean Barry Bloom. "The new program builds on our extraordinary internationally recognized collaborations cultivated between the former Environmental Epidemiology and the Environmental Science and Engineering Programs."

Added James Ware, Dean for Academic Affairs: "The School has a distinguished history of research on exposure assessment and on the health effects of environmental exposures. In bringing together the programs in environmental epidemiology and environmental science and engineering, we are acknowledging a relationship that has flourished for several decades."

Petros Koutrakis has been appointed director of the new program, which involves 25 faculty, 60 students, and approximately 65 staff and other researchers. He is professor of environmental sciences in the Department of Environmental Health and director of the EPA/Harvard Center on Ambient Particle Health Effects. His research interests include human exposure assessment, ambient and indoor air pollution, environmental analytical chemistry, and environmental management. He currently serves as a consultant to the EPA Science Advisory Board, is a member of the National Research Council Particulate Matter committee, and is on the American Chemical Council Research Strategic Team. Until recently, he was the technical editor-in-chief of the Journal of the Air and Waste Management Association.

The research includes looking at a plethora of health outcomes, he said, such as the cardiopulmonary effects of air pollution, cognitive effects of lead and other toxic metals, effects of disinfection byproducts in drinking water, and biomarkers of environmental exposure. In addition, scientists will continue studying factors influencing exposure-response relationships, such as genetic, nutritional, socioeconomic and behavioral factors. Consequently, said Koutrakis, much of the research will involve extensive collaboration between the Exposure, Epidemiology, and Risk Program and other HSPH departments.

"In Petros, we have an enthusiastic and energetic faculty member who has a strong vision for the new program," said Joseph Brain, chair of the Department of Environmental Health. "He and I see his job as guiding a very significant portion of the department over the upcoming years as the focus of research evolves to reflect environmental health issues of increasing interest."

For example, noted Brain, research in the department has taken on a more international emphasis and has added areas of investigation such as reproductive and cognitive outcomes and the extensive worldwide lack of access to clean water.

	Douglas Dockery

Dockery will continue to lead efforts to facilitate research collaborations that involve environmental epidemiology within the school and the broader Longwood community, such as the Channing Laboratories, said Brain. He will also work with others to recruit and train students in the area.

Working in the engineering arm of the program, researchers will measure and model ambient indoor and personal exposures to environmental and workplace contaminants; will build instruments and develop methods for sample collection, analysis and assessment; and will conduct risk evaluations of new products, fuels, water supplies, technologies and remediation strategies.

	John Spengler