Speakers

Lidia Morawska is Distinguished Professor at the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia, and the Director of the International Laboratory for Air Quality and Health at QUT, which is a Collaborating Centre of the WHO. Lidia also holds positions of Vice-Chancellor Fellow, Global Centre for Clean Air Research, University of Surrey, UK and of Adjunct Professor, Institute for Environmental and Climate Research (ECI), Jinan University, Guangzhou, China. She conducts fundamental and applied research in the interdisciplinary field of air quality and its impact on human health and the environment, with a focus on science of airborne particulate matter. She is a physicist and received her doctorate at the Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland. An author of almost one thousand journal papers, book chapters and refereed conference papers, Lidia has been involved at the executive level with a number of relevant national and international professional bodies, is a member of the Australian Academy of Science and a recipient of numerous scientific awards.

Judith is a principal risk assessor at Senversa and has been working within the contaminated land sector for over twenty years, she has specialised in human health risk assessment for the last 15. Judith is interested in all stages of contaminated land risk assessment and believes the earlier the risk assessor becomes involved in a project the better the outcomes for all involved.  She is also passionate in furthering the opportunities and visibility of women in STEM and all parts of life.

Tim is the environmental health tracking network specialist at EPA Victoria. His role focusses on the production of user-friendly computational tools that draw from a network of data sources to calculate health and environmental indicators for policy relevant scenarios relating to pollution and waste. Tim completed his PhD at UNSW and a related post doc at Kings College London. In addition to this training in biochemistry and molecular and computational biology, Tim has clinical research experience from the Monash Centre for Obesity Research and Education and has 10 years’ experience working as a professional academic reviewer and editor. In the past four years, he worked as an epidemiologist at The University of Sydney School of Public Health, where he fostered partnerships between academic and industry stakeholders and managed collaborative environmental health projects. 

Dr Benjamin Edokpolo is a senior health risk advisor at EPA Victoria in the Environmental Public Health Branch. His areas of expertise include human health and environmental risk assessment, exposure modelling, indoor air quality assessment, fate and transport assessment, environmental monitoring, and risk management.Benjamin has supported EPA in providing advice on risks to environmental public health in relation to pollution and waste as well as led the development of guidelines. Benjamin has a keen interest in research to improve air quality policies and practices to meet the needs of vulnerable populations. Benjamin has been an Adjunct Research Fellow with the Centre for Environment and Population Health, School of Medicine, Griffith University and active in professional organisations. He is currently the Chair Health Special Interest Group CASANZ.

MSc Environmental Toxicology; Diplomate of the American Board of Toxicology (DABT); Registered Member, Australasian College of Toxicology & Risk Assessment (RACTRA) 

Tarah is currently the Technical Discipline Manager in Toxicology and Risk Assessment at SLR Consulting. Tarah is a certified toxicologist with over 13 years’ experience as a toxicology and risk assessment consultant conducting screening and detailed human health and ecological risk assessments for a variety of industries and government. Included are industrial emissions, contaminated land and water, consumer goods and food. She has written and co-written numerous major reports, which have been influential in shaping Australian health risk assessment methodology and policy decisions in relation to environmental issues. She has been involved with various publications reviewing the toxicity of engineered nanomaterials, setting safety limits for active ingredients of pharmaceuticals and consumer products, complex risk assessments for occupational and public exposure to PFAS and many other chemicals. She is also a Sessional Lecturer at RMIT University in the fields of toxicology and epidemiology and the current Secretary of ACTRA.

Selma Kaasinen is the Health Director at the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA). She has tertiary degrees in molecular biology and plant physiology (MSc with Honours) from the University of Turku and a Doctorate degree in neuroscience and molecular medicine from the University of Kuopio in Finland. In addition to the science degrees, she has post-graduate certificate degree in management and leadership from the Australian National University. After over a decade of carrying out academic research in Finland and Australia, she joined Australian Public Service and has worked the past 14 years in regulatory environment. In addition to the scientific publications, she has carried out numerous toxicological evaluations and risk assessments of human and veterinary medicines, agrochemicals and related products, and also managed guideline review projects for the National Health and Medical Research Council, Safe Work Australia and Therapeutic Goods Administration. She is also a member of the ACTRA; has been the member of the board and as a lead of the education committee. 

Victoria is the Director of Terravale Consulting and a FACTRA, with 20 years experience working in the field of environmental health.  Victoria is also a recently enrolled PhD student at the Future Industries Institute of the University of South Australia.  Her project is focused on ‘Environmental Behaviours and Biokinetics of Technology Critical Elements’, with this presentation an outcome of the early stages of the research. 

Raymond Lui is a PhD student in the Faculty of Medicine and Health at The University of Sydney. His research in the Computational Pharmacology and Toxicology Lab involves developing molecular simulation and machine learning methods for high performance computing systems to accurately determine the molecular properties of chemicals and investigate their structure – activity relationships with a range of endpoints, including cancer, endocrine disruption, and birth defects.

Dr. Méndez is a Senior Science Advisor in the US EPA’s Office of Pesticide Programs Health Effects Division (OPP/HED). She has 20 years of experience in regulatory toxicology overseeing a number of projects intended to advance the state of the science and risk assessments produced by the OPP. She works closely with staff scientists providing guidance on dataset bridging, mode of action data analysis, hazard characterization, endpoint selection, identifying data gaps, and protocol reviews. She co-chaired the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Expert Group on Developmental and Reproductive Toxicology that developed the Extended One Generation Reproductive Toxicity Study (EOGRTS) Test Guideline. She has also served in several OECD Review Panels on numerous proposed Adverse Outcome Pathways, co-chairs the Interagency Coordinating Committee on the Validation of Alternative Methods (ICCVAM) Developmental and Reproductive Toxicology Workgroup and serves as an Expert Panelist to the WHO’s Joint Meeting on Pesticide Residues.

The UK National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research (NC3Rs) is an independent scientific organisation that use the 3Rs as a framework to support science, innovation and animal welfare. Established in 2004, we work across the bioscience sector with research funders, industry, regulators and academia. Deb is a Programme Manager in the Innovations team, supporting the NC3Rs open innovation programme CRACK IT by managing funded projects within the portfolio, ensuring delivery against milestones, maintaining consortia relations and collating impacts. Deb’s research background is in senescence, ageing and organotypic modelling and prior to joining the NC3Rs her roles focussed on fostering collaborations between academia and industry..

Maryam is a Health Scientist at Environment Protection Authority Victoria (EPA Vic - Epidemiology team) currently working on dashboard development to bring together health data and environment data as part of the tracking network project. She has a PhD in Molecular Biochemistry from University of Melbourne and her PhD research focused on the impact of environmental stressors on neuronal development. With over 10 years of health-related research and consulting, Maryam has been involved in different projects providing wide range of health science and risk assessment advice. She is an ACTRA registrant (RACTRA) and chair of education committee organising ACTRA webinar series. 

Dr. Caroline Ring is a Computational Exposure Data Scientist at the US EPA Center for Computational Toxicology and Exposure. Her research focuses on quantitative evidence integration: bringing together new and/or existing data to infer underlying patterns of exposure, hazard, and risk, to understand variability in those patterns (across populations, places, and/or time), and to quantify uncertainty in those inferences. Her work has included population variability simulation in high-throughput toxicokinetic modeling for in vitro-in vivo extrapolation; high-throughput machine-learning models to predict population aggregate exposures and environmental media occurrence; uncertainty quantification in development of toxicity values; life-stage variability in toxicokinetic modeling; machine-learning methods to predict in vivo toxicity from in vitro screening assays; and more.

Sneha Satya is the Director of the Capability, Scientific Integrity and International Section at the Office of Chemical Safety (OCS).  Sneha manages the development of scientific guidance and training for the OCS regulatory scientists and international activities principally those at the OECD. She also manages industrial chemicals activities related to international treaties such as the Rotterdam, Stockholm and Minamata Conventions.  Dr Satya has a medical degree and a Masters Degree in Occupational Health & Safety with toxicology as the elective from the University of SydneyDr Satya has over 25 years experience in government regulation, in policy, scientific and international activities related to industrial chemicals.  She represents the Department of Health in the OECD Working Party on Hazard Assessment (WPHA), the OECD Extended Advisory Group on Molecular Screening and Toxicogenomics (EAGMST) and the OECD/UNEP Global PFAS Group. 

Kayla Smurthwaite is a PhD candidate at the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health (NCEPH), Australian National University (ANU). She undertook her PhD in environmental epidemiology on blood serum testing of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in Australian communities affected by local environmental contamination. Since 2016, Kayla has investigated PFAS exposure in Katherine in the Northern Territory, Oakey in Queensland and Williamtown in New South Wales, initially as part of the PFAS Health Study commissioned by the Australian Government Department of Health and now in a longitudinal study with the University of Queensland. In addition, she has contributed to the Airservices Australia Study of PFAS exposure in aviation firefighters.  Prior to commencing her PhD, Kayla completed a Bachelor of Medical Science with Honours, where she conducted her Undergraduate research projects on the geospatial modelling of chronic diseases in Australian communities.

Len has over 35 years’ experience in public health toxicology, exposure science and human health risk assessment including experience across food and air quality laboratories.  He holds a Bachelor of Applied Science in Chemistry and Microbiology, a Master of Public Health where he investigated asthma causative factors in children, and a PhD examining indoor inhalation exposures to trichloroethylene from vapour intrusion.  His training has also included Occupational Hygiene at Sydney University.  He has worked in government, industry and academia where he has developed national guidelines, regulatory frameworks, and been an expert witness in court. He has undertaken numerous risk assessments for hazardous substances in air, soil, water, food and consumer goods and presented and published papers at a national and international level.  His current professional interests at the University of Adelaide focus on exposure science where he undertakes teaching and research on a part-time basis.  The balance of his time is spent as a Founder and Director of HealthRisk Services Pty Ltd where he is involved in legal cases and complex risk assessments.