Co-Directors

Francine Laden, ScD
Francine Laden is an Environmental Epidemiologist and Professor at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health with an interest in the association of long-term exposures to air pollution and neighborhood contextual factors. Her research focuses on the development of methods to explore and incorporate long-term environmental exposures into existing epidemiologic cohort studies and design new epidemiologic studies that prospectively and retrospectively assess environmental exposures.  Dr. Laden is a Co-Director of CRESSH and a Co-Investigator in Project 1: HEAL.

 

Jonathan Levy, ScD
Jonathan Levy is a Professor of Environmental Health at the Boston University School of Public Health. His work focuses on air pollution exposure assessment and health risk assessment, with an emphasis on urban environments and issues of heterogeneity and equity. Dr. Levy is a Co-Director of CRESSH and a Co-Investigator in both Project 3: MAP-EHD and the Community Engagement Core.

 

 

 

Project Leads

Gary Adamkiewicz, PhD
Gary Adamkiewicz is an Assistant Professor of Environmental Health and Exposure Disparities at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. His research focuses on understanding the linkages between housing characteristics, environmental exposures, and health, with much of his work focusing on low-income communities. Dr. Adamkiewicz is the Project Lead for Project 2: HOME.

 

 

 

Patricia Fabian, ScD
Patricia Fabian is a Research Assistant Professor at the Boston University School of Public Health. She studies complex multi-stressor public health issues through environmental health, environmental engineering, system sciences and Geographical Information Systems (GIS). Dr. Fabian is the Project Lead for Project 3: MAP-EHD.

 

 

 

 

Antonella Zanobetti, PhD
Antonella Zanobetti is a Principal Research Scientist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Her expertise is in environmental epidemiology. Dr. Zanobetti studies the health effects of air pollution, temperature extremes, and climate change on mortality and hospital admission, focusing on susceptibility and vulnerability. Dr. Zanobetti is the Project Lead for Project 1: HEAL.

 

 

 

Core Leaders

Madeleine Scammell, DSc
Madeleine Scammell is an Assistant Professor of Environmental Health at the Boston University School of Public Health. Her research is community-based with a focus on developing research methods that incorporate community perspectives using the tools of epidemiology and risk analysis. Dr. Scammell is the Director of the Community Engagement Core and is also a Co-Investigator in Project 3: MAP-EHD.

 

 

John Spengler, PhD
John Spengler is a Professor of Environmental Health and Habitation at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. His research involves air pollution monitoring and childhood health interventions in public housing as well as the impact of traffic on ambient air pollution. Dr. Spengler is the Director of the Pilot Project Program.

 

 

 

 

Co-Investigators

Roseann Bongiovanni
Roseann Bongiovanni is the Associate Executive Director at the Chelsea Collaborative in Chelsea, MA. She works on projects that preserve and protect Chelsea’s environment through the implementation of environmental and economic justice initiatives.  Ms. Bongiovanni is also involved with the Citywide Tenants Association, an advocacy group in Chelsea that focuses on tenant rights and advocacy. Ms. Bongiovanni coordinates the partnership between CRESSH and the Chelsea Collaborative as part of the Community Engagement Core (CEC).

 

Stacey Chacker
Stacey Chacker is the Director of Health Resources in Action’s Environmental Health Department and the Director of the Asthma Regional Council of New England, a coalition of public agencies, private organization and researchers working to address environmental and clinical causes of asthma. She has led many community-driven efforts to tackle environmental and social justice issues in Boston, including the development of open space and youth organizing in East Boston. Ms. Chacker coordinates the partnership between CRESSH and Health Resources in Action as part of the Community Engagement Core (CEC).

 

 

John Cook, PhD
John Cook is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at the Boston University School of Medicine. John’s research focuses on the differences across major racial/ethnic subpopulations with regards to family hardships, access to household resources from paid work, and social safety-net programs to address those hardships. Dr. Cook also studies the subsequent adverse child and maternal health outcomes associated with these hardships. Dr. Cook is a Co-Investigator for Project 1: HEAL.

 

 

Francesca Dominici, PhD
Francesca Dominici is a Professor of Biostatistics at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Her research focuses on developing statistical methods for integrating and analyzing large and heterogeneous datasets to routinely evaluate the health consequences of environmental and clinical interventions, with most of her research focusing on Bayesian methods. Dr. Dominici is a Co-Investigator for Project 1: HEAL and is a member of CRESSH’s Internal Advisory Board.

 

 

Stephanie Ettinger de Cuba, MPH
Stephanie Ettinger de Cuba is a Senior Project Director at the Data Coordinating Center at the Boston University School of Public Health and the Research and Policy Director for Children’s HealthWatch. Her work focuses on inequities in children’s health and family well-being resulting from economic hardships (difficulty in affording food, housing, utilities and/or health care) and access to and participation in social safety-net programs that address hardships.  She also has expertise in public policy and advocacy, including working with community members to advocate for change.  She is working on Project 1: HEAL.

 

Jaime Hart, ScD
Jaime E. Hart is an Assistant Professor in Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School as well as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Environmental Health at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Her research has focused on environmental and occupational risk factors of chronic disease including cancer and cardiopulmonary diseases with a focus on workers in railroad and trucking industries and members of the Nurses’ Health Studies and other Harvard-based cohorts. Dr. Hart is a Co-Investigator for Project 1: HEAL.

 

 

Kevin Lane, PhD
Kevin Lane is an Assistant Professor of Environmental Health at the Boston University of Public Health. His research focuses on air pollution, built environment, urbanization and impacts of climate change on public health. He specializes in big-data and spatial research, integrating geographic information systems (GIS), remote sensing data and time-activity algorithms to develop novel methods for exposure assessment and epidemiology. Dr. Lane is a Co-Investigator for Project 1: HEAL and Project 3: MAP-EHD.

 

Megan Sandel, MD, MPH
Megan Sandel is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at the Boston University School of Medicine, as well as an Associate Professor of Environmental Health at the Boston University School of Public Health. Her research focuses on linkages between environmental health and children’s health, particularly in asthma and the role of stress in housing and health. She also studies innovative models of care, such as how medical-legal partnerships impact housing and health. Dr. Sandel is a Co-Investigator for Project 1: HEAL.

 

 

Joel Schwartz, PhD
Joel Schwartz is a Professor of Environmental Epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the Director of the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis. His research focuses on differential responses to exposures including lead, air pollution, and temperature. Dr. Schwartz is a Co-Investigator for Project 1: HEAL.

 

 

 

David Williams, PhD
David Williams is a Professor of Public Health, Professor of African and African American Studies and Professor of Sociology at Harvard University. His work focuses on how social factors including race, racism, stress, socioeconomic status and religious involvement are linked to each other, and how they combine to affect health status. Dr. Williams is a Co-Investigator for the Administrative Core and serves as the Chair of CRESSH’s Internal Advisory Board.

 

 

Postdoctoral Research Associates

Chad Milando, PhD
Chad Milando is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Boston University School of Public Health. His research focuses on developing and employing computational tools to investigate harmful environmental exposures among human populations, with a specific focus on exposures among vulnerable populations. Dr. Milando is a research associate for Project 3: MAP-EHD.

 

Erica Walker, PhD
Erica Walker is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Boston University School of Public Health. Her work with CRESSH spans across all three projects and includes: (1) extrapolating her Greater Boston Sound Model to entire state of MA; (2) using these estimates to examine the relationship between sound levels and cognitive function in children; (4) creating an outdoor-indoor sound propagation model; (5) engaging CRESSH communities about sound levels via her Community Noise Lab.

 

 

Project Staff

Marty Alvarez, MS
Marty Alvarez is a Project Manager in the Department of Environmental Health at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. She works closely with investigators across the Center and oversees day to day operations, coordinates CRESSH-sponsored meetings and seminars, and manages the overall study timeline. She is also part of the HOME study team and is responsible for managing compliance with human subject research requirements, data collection, and communication between team members and community partners. Marty is the CRESSH Administrator and Project Manager for Project 2: HOME.

 

 

Sara Gillooly, MPH
Sara Gillooly is a Research Coordinator in the Department of Environmental Health at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. She has wide-ranging fieldwork experience in various aspects of indoor and ambient outdoor air quality research, as well as qualitative research experience utilizing participatory methods. She is responsible for preparation and implementation of the sampling campaign for environmental data collection in the HOME study, coordination with project partners and laboratories, data entry and management, and assistance with quality control and data analysis efforts. Sara is the Fieldwork Leader for Project 2: HOME.

 

Melissa Miller, MPH
Melissa Miller is a Research Assistant at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. She has a strong background in data management and analysis and exposure assessment. Melissa assists with the processing and management of the HOME Study’s environmental and questionnaire data, and coordinating with project partners. Melissa is the Research Assistant  for Project 2: HOME.

 

 

Erin Polka, MPH
Erin Polka is a coordinator for the Community Engagement Core in the Department of Environmental Health at the Boston University School of Public Health. She assists CRESSH’s community partners and Project 2: HOME investigators in coordinating and distributing report back materials for the HOME Study, manages the website and social media platforms, and publishes quarterly newsletters.

 

 

 

Andrew Shapero, MPH
Andrew Shapero is a former Research Assistant in the Department of Environmental Health at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. He has a strong background in environmental health fieldwork, specifically in indoor air quality studies. He contributed to in-home environmental assessments and to analysis of the HOME Study’s environmental and questionnaire data. Andrew is the former Research Assistant for Project 2: HOME.

 

 

 

 

Jose Vallarino, MS
Jose Vallarino is a project engineer in the Department of Environmental Health at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. He manages exposure studies focused on indoor and ambient environmental air quality, provides oversight of sampling protocols, designs monitoring platforms, and serves as the QA/QC officer for data collection. Jose is the Research and Data Manager & Project Engineer for Project 2: HOME.

 

 

Claire Schollaert, MPH
Claire Schollaert is the former coordinator for the Community Engagement Core in the Department of Environmental Health at the Boston University School of Public Health. She assisted CRESSH’s community partners and Project 2: HOME investigators on the development of recruitment and educational materials for study participants, organized meetings with our community partners, and also managed website development & communications.