ACE President-Elect

John F. Acquavella, PhD is Senior Director for Epidemiology at Amgen Inc. in Thousand Oaks, California. He worked previously for the Environmental Protection Agency, the University of California, Exxon Biomedical Sciences, and Monsanto Company.

Background: Dr. Acquavella completed his MS in Natural Sciences and his doctoral training in epidemiology at SUNY Buffalo’s Roswell Park Memorial Institute. He is an adjunct professor of Epidemiology at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst School of Public Health and at the Arnold School of Public Health at the University of South Carolina. His current research focus is pharmacoepidemiology after more than 20 years of concentration in environmental and occupational epidemiology.

Dr. Acquavella served as ACE Secretary, an Executive Board member, and Chair of the Admissions Committee from 1996-2003. He also served on the Communications, Membership, and Education Committees and, from 2002-2004, coordinated educational workshops for the ACE and SER meetings. Currently, he chairs the 2005 ACE Annual Meeting Planning Committee.

David E. Lilienfeld, MD, MPH, MSEngin, MBA, FACE, FISPE, FAHA is Senior Director and Head of Drug Safety at Protein Design Labs, Inc, a biotechnology company in Fremont, California. He has directed drug safety and pharmacoepidemiology activities previously at InterMune, a biotechnology company in Brisbane, California, and conducted epidemiologic studies while at Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, FMAS, Inc, the EMMES Corporation, and while on faculty at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. He also teaches at Stanford University, having given two courses in the past year, and has taught at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences and at Rutgers.

Background: Dr. Lilienfeld was in the first class to have completed all requirements of the Public Health Option at the Johns Hopkins University Faculty of Arts and Sciences. He then completed the MSEngin program in statistical computing (mathematical sciences and computer sciences), after which he went to the University of Maryland School of Medicine (MD), followed by a residency in preventive medicine at the Minnesota Department of Health. He received a MPH in epidemiology at the University of Minnesota (Professor Jack Mandel, advisor) and an MBA in health care administration from the Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Lilienfeld was a co-founder of the International Society for Pharmacoepidemiology and the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology, most recently establishing the Western Drug Safety and Pharmacoepidemiology Society. While Dr. Lilienfeld has maintained a focus on pharmacoepidemiology, he has continued his research in the epidemiology of diseases of the pulmonary vasculature, neurodegenerative diseases, and the history of epidemiology (for which he received the SER Professors’ Prize in the History of Epidemiology). He is the co-author of Foundations of Epidemiology, currently in its 3rd edition (4th edition is in discussion). Dr. Lilienfeld has served on many ad hoc study sections for the NIH and the CDCP, and currently serves on the Epidemiology of Chronic Diseases and Aging Study Section (nee EDC-3).

Dr. Lilienfeld has served the College in many roles, having organized the first workshop on epidemiology and the law at the 1985 Annual Meeting, co-chaired the 1995 Program Committee (with W. Satariano), and reviewed abstracts for submitted papers for many ACE Annual Meetings. For the past 5 years, Dr. Lilienfeld has served on the Publications Committee, and for the past 2 ½ years directed the ACE Pages Subcommittee, with the charge of managing the ACE pages in each issue of the Annals of Epidemiology. 

Denise M. Oleske, Ph.D. is Professor, Departments of Health Systems Management and Preventive Medicine at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. In the Department of Health Systems Management, she is also Associate Chair.

Background: Dr. Oleske, an ACE Fellow, has served in a variety of capacities in the organization including the Program Planning Committee for the 2003 meeting, as judge on poster committees for several years, and the Publications Committee. She has served on the Finance Committee as a member, Vice-Chair and currently is Chair. As Chair of the Finance Committee, she is leading in the development of policies and procedures to support the sound fiscal growth of ACE.

Dr. Oleske earned a B.S. in biology (1971) at Marquette University followed by degrees from the University of Illinois including a BSN (1974), an MPH (1974), and a PhD (1983) in epidemiology, the latter two which were from the School of Public Health.

She has extensive experience teaching epidemiology to physicians and medical, nursing, and allied health professions students.

In the 80’s, she was among the pioneers of the application of epidemiology for benchmarking and evaluating the quality of health care services through the use of administrative databases. Her textbook on the subject, Epidemiology and the Delivery of Health Care Services: Methods and Applications, is in its second edition, with a translation in Chinese. Today, Dr. Oleske focuses on occupational epidemiology and breast cancer epidemiology. Her current research involves examining the role of new prognostic factors for breast cancer recurrence (genetic markers) and the methodological aspects of longitudinal studies in the workplace particularly ergonomic exposure modeling for cumulative trauma disorders.

Her board experience includes serving as an elected Director-at-Large of the American Cancer Society (ACS) and a member of the Governing Council of Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge Illinois, nationally recognized for nine consecutive years in the US News and World Report’s “America’s Best Hospitals’ ranking.” She is also Chair of the Cancer Incidence and End Results Committee of the ACS.

Robert Spirtas, M.S., Dr.P.H. is Chief of the Contraception and Reproductive Health Branch, Center for Population Research, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), NIH, DHHS, Bethesda, MD.

Background: At the NICHD, Dr. Spirtas directs a program supporting research on the discovery, development, efficacy, safety and mechanisms of action of various methods of contraception, as well as on reproductive health and epidemiology. His research interests are in the fields of environmental health and reproductive health. His most recent project was the Women’s Contraception and Reproductive Experiences study (a multi-center, population-based, case-control study which examined the relationship between the risk of breast cancer and the use of oral contraceptives among women aged 35-64 years). His administrative responsibilities include consultation and collaboration with other governmental agencies, including FDA, CDC, and USAID, and frequent interactions with non-governmental organizations. In addition to service on various NIH committees, he has prepared and given congressional testimony. Dr. Spirtas is a coordinating agency scientist on various World Health Organization committees dealing with contraception and reproductive health. Prior to his joining NICHD, Dr. Spirtas served as a statistician with the National Air Pollution Control Administration (a predecessor to the Environmental Protection Agency), a Research Associate with the Occupational Health Studies Group at the University of North Carolina, Chief of the Illness Effects Section, Division of Surveillance, Hazard Evaluations, and Field Studies at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, and a biostatistician in the Environmental Epidemiology Branch of the National Cancer Institute. He holds a B.A. in Actuarial Science from the University of Illinois, an M.S. in Statistics from the University of Iowa, and a Dr.P.H. in Biostatistics with a Supporting Program in Epidemiology and Environmental Sciences and Engineering from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has served as a Commissioned Officer in the United States Public Health Service and is active in the Commissioned Officers Association. He has been an officer in the Statistics Section of APHA, and was a member of the National Death Index Advisory Committee. He is a Fellow of the ACE, and a member of the American Public Health Association, the Society for Epidemiologic Research, and the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (he currently serves as an epidemiologist on the Threshold Limit Values Committee of the ACGIH). Dr. Spirtas has received the Statistics Section, APHA Award, the NIH Directors Award, and the Charles C. Shepard Science Award.

Jorge Ibarra, M.D., M.P.H., is a County Epidemiologist in Tucson, Arizona. He is also Co-Director of Mesa Public Health Associates, a consulting firm in the US-Mexico border region. As a member of the American College of Epidemiology he has served on the Minority Affairs Committee. He is a partner in the CityMatCH perinatal periods of risk multi-city project. He also serves as a member of the board of directors of two international non-governmental organizations.

Background: Dr. Ibarra has a long term interest in child survival issues, the application of epidemiological methods, asthma in children, and the management of communicable diseases and health surveillance systems. He was a pioneer in the establishment of the Mexican Institute of Public Health in Cuernavaca, serving along side numerous key Mexican leaders in public health. During that time he taught social medicine and basic epidemiology at the School of Medicine in Mexico City. Later, he joined the University of Arizona where he served in different capacities including assisting and conducting research on asthma in children at the USA-Mexico Border.

In his current position he has had the opportunity to study infectious disease outbreaks of different magnitudes and assess surveillance systems for various public health purposes. Currently, Dr. Ibarra is part of a multi-city CityMatCH team (University of Nebraska) for the study of health disparities through the assessment of perinatal periods of risk. He also participates in several local and state committees working on the identification of health needs for maternal and child issues as well as obesity prevention policy. Dr. Ibarra earned a medical degree from the University of Mexico, a master in public health at the University of Arizona and has extensive course work on community medicine from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and in epidemiology from Boston University.