Environmental Health Sciences

Tomás R. Guilarte, PhD
Leon Hess Professor & Chairman

Environmental Health Sciences at the Mailman School of Public Health is vibrant and growing and poised to tackle the environmental health challenges that our surrounding communities, state and country face today.

It is an exciting time to be a member of the Department as we experience many firsts. With our recent move to new state-of-the-art laboratories, all of the Department’s basic science research is for the first time being conducted in contiguous space - facilitating the interaction of basic science researchers and maximizing the utilization of resources.

Another first is the current renovation of new office, conference and teaching space in the 11th and 12th floor of the School’s Allan Rosenfield Building. The Department will reside at this new location in LEED approved facilities with a target date of December 2010. The new departmental facilities are welcomed by all and we give our thanks to Dean Linda Fried for this fantastic opportunity.

Yet, another first is the inauguration of the Leon Hess Endowed Professorship, the first endowed chair in the history of the Department. We are deeply grateful and appreciative to the Hess Foundation and the Hess family for this generous and transformational gift.

The Department is also embarking on the recruitment of new faculty. We are very excited about the recruitment of new Assistant Professors in the areas of Molecular Epidemiology, Climate and Health, and Neurotoxicology. On July 1, 2010 Dr. Julie Herbstman became our first Assistant Professor appointment of this new cohort, and we are thrilled with the talent she brings and the outstanding work that she is doing on the effects of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) on children’s development.

The newly launched Climate and Health Program is poised to grow and we are in the process of selecting a new Assistant Professor to help with the expansion and to further enhance interactions with our colleagues at Columbia’s Earth Institute and the International Research Institute for Climate and Society. The implementation of mechanism-based neurotoxicology research will provide the basic science foundation and a link to the outstanding population-based studies on the effects of environmental pollutants on neurodevelopment and neurodegenerative disease, areas of research that have a long and rich history in the department.

In this new academic year, the Department also welcomes an outstanding group of doctoral and MPH students, our largest class yet, with a total of 33 new MPH and 5 new doctoral students. The addition of this new cohort of students to the existing student body will make the 2010-2011 academic year an exciting one for teaching and research.

We are proud of the success of our current students in obtaining prestigious awards and competitive grants during the past academic year. For example, doctoral student Allan Just was awarded an EPA Star Grant and Christine George is completing a Fullbright Award for her work in Bangladesh. These are just some examples of the outstanding work of our students.

As I take charge of the Chairmanship of the Department of Environmental Health Sciences, I am grateful to Dr. Joseph Graziano, Interim Chair and Professor of Environmental Health Sciences for his outstanding stewardship of the department throughout this process.

It is my privilege to be a part of the Department of Environmental Health Sciences and the Mailman School of Public Health community.

These are exciting times indeed! Please come and see what we are all about—visit our website or schedule a time to come and talk with us.

With warm regards,

Tomás R. Guilarte, PhD
Leon Hess Professor & Chairman
Department of Environmental Health Sciences
Mailman School of Public Health
Columbia University