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2010 Election Results Biographical Sketches and Winner Statements
President-Elect | Board of Directors - Fellows | Boad of Directors-Members |
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ACE
2010 President-Elect
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Robert E. McKeown, PhD is professor and chair of the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Arnold School of Public Health, University of South Carolina (USC). He directs USC's Health Sciences Research Core and is Interim Director of the Institute for Advancement of Health Care, collaborating with Greenville Hospital System. Background: Robert holds a BS in chemistry (Furman University), Master of Divinity and PhD in philosophical theology (Duke), and PhD in epidemiology (USC). An ACE Fellow since 2002, he has been on the Board of Directors (2004-09) and Ethics Committee (1997-2005; chair, 2001-05) and is now on the Career Mentoring Committee. Robert is past-chair of the APHA Epidemiology Section, chaired that Section's Program, Awards, and Nominations Committees, and served on the APHA Governing Council. He was on the Program Committee for the Second North American Congress of Epidemiology in 2006. At USC Robert was a founding Co-Director of the USC Research Consortium on Children and Families. Over the next year he will relinquish several leadership roles, allowing more time for engaging in ACE activities. Robert's primary research interests are psychiatric epidemiology, focusing on children and adolescents, and public health ethics. His teaching focuses on epidemiologic methods, ethics, and psychiatric epidemiology. He is the recipient of the Arnold School's Distinguished Alumnus Award and is the only faculty member to have received all three faculty awards: for teaching, research, and service. Statement: ACE candidate statements frequently mention the unique place and mission of ACE among epidemiology professional societies, and rightly so. Three characteristics commonly used to describe a profession seem especially apt: (1) commitment to expertise in a discipline and excellence in its practice, (2) commitment to a set of shared values, and (3) commitment to accountability and responsible conduct. ACE has long been a leader in promoting these very aspects of our professional life. Our meetings and workshops contribute to the first, our longstanding work in ethics in epidemiology and our leadership in developing policy recommendations are evidence of the second and third. The past decade has been one of unusual ferment in epidemiology. We have been, as one meeting theme expressed, "under fire", but we have also been at the center of numerous scientific, policy, and ethics debates and advances. Look at past meeting themes and you will see an organization intentionally addressing the changing context and its challenges, while seeking to apply the best scientific tools to improve public health. If elected I would like us to think deeply about what we value about our distinctive identify, and how we can best equip current and emerging epidemiologists for excellence in the practice of epidemiology. I would like for us to engage in critical reflection on who we have been, who we want to be, where we want to go as a professional society, and what we need to do to get there, while continuing to offer strong leadership in focused scientific meetings, policy development, and promotion of the profession.
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Board of Directors - FellowsRichard N. Baumgartner, PhD | Cathy W. Critchlow, PhD | Pauline Mendola, PhD |
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Richard N. Baumgartner, PhD is a Fellow of the American College of Epidemiology and currently serves as a member of the Ethics Committee. He received his PhD from the University of Texas School of Public Health at Houston in 1982. He is currently Professor and Chair of the Department of Epidemiology and Population Health in the School of Public Health Information Sciences, University of Louisville. His prior faculty appointments were at Wright State University School of Medicine (1986-1990) and the University of New Mexico (UNM) School of Medicine (1991-2005). At UNM he served as Director of the Aging and Genetic Epidemiology Program, Associate Director for Science in the Institute for Public Health, and Interim Chief of the Division of Epidemiology. Dr. Baumgartner is an internationally recognized expert in body composition methodology, and has over 200 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters on the epidemiology of body composition and chronic diseases, including breast cancer, falls and fractures, and disability. He was the Principal Investigator of two long-term cohort studies: the Aging Process Study and the New Mexico Health, Eating, Activity and Lifestyle (HEAL) Study. Statement: In the 21st century we anticipate the confluence of two unprecedented epidemics, obesity and aging, that will contribute to trailing epidemics of chronic metabolic disease and disability, as well as the potential reemergence of infectious diseases. If elected to the Board of Directors, I will help ACE to build bridges with other societies to strengthen multidisciplinary research in these priority areas with a focus on translational research and policy outcomes. I will take a leading role for the College in advocating the inclusion of more epidemiology in the NIH Roadmap Initiative, with an understanding that "translational research" includes population-based studies and interventions. I will promote professional development through workshops and interdisciplinary symposia at the annual meetings, and provide venues for multidisciplinary discussions of how to more effectively meld epidemiology with advances in bioinformatics, genomics, proteomics, and metabolomics. I will support aggressive policies to develop and maintain the membership base and increase the impact of Annals through the publication of multidisciplinary research in high priority areas. Cathy W. Critchlow, PhD is an Epidemiology Executive Director at Amgen Inc. in Thousand Oaks, California. She is a Fellow of ACE, has served on the ACE Education Committee, and coordinated educational workshops for the ACE and SER meetings. She is also an Affiliate Professor in Epidemiology at the University of Washington, Seattle Background: Dr. Critchlow completed her MS in Biostatistics and her PhD in Epidemiology at the University of Washington. She joined the Epidemiology faculty at the University of Washington in 1993 where she conducted research on infectious disease and reproductive epidemiology. She taught courses in applications of epidemiology methods and was the principal investigator for NIH-funded projects based in West Africa. She was a permanent member on NIH Study Sections (EDC-2 and MIDRC) and the FDA Endocrinologic and Metabolic Advisory Committee, and served as an ad hoc member on numerous other NIH, CDC and DOD review committees. Dr. Critchlow joined Amgen in 2004, where she now focuses on pharmacoepidemiology and metabolic disease. Statement: ACE is an outstanding advocate for policies that enhance the practice of epidemiology and meet the professional and development needs of epidemiologists at all career stages. I have both tremendously enjoyed and benefited from my previous roles within ACE and the opportunities afforded by ACE membership. I am honored to be nominated as a candidate for the ACE Board of Directors. As someone who has experienced the practice of epidemiology in academia, private industry and the government, as well as having been privileged enough to mentor, and to be mentored by persons in each of those sectors, I would embrace the opportunity to bring those perspectives to the ACE Board to help meet the professional needs of ACE members. The role of epidemiology in advancing our understanding of disease etiology and prevention, and in protecting the public health by assessing the safety and efficacy of medications, is growing in both importance and impact. The demand for well-trained epidemiologists is growing rapidly, increasing the need for organizations like ACE to advocate for our profession, and to create development and leadership opportunities for epidemiologists that translate to all sectors where epidemiology is practiced. The role and influence of epidemiology as a profession will grow in proportion to the extent that the perspectives of the practicing constituencies are recognized and supported. I look forward to working with the Board to help promote opportunities within ACE for education, mentoring, collaboration and development that will help prepare our membership for the greater roles and responsibilities that we will all face. Pauline Mendola, PhD is the Chief of the Infant, Child and Women's Health Statistics Branch of the National Center for Health Statistics, CDC and Adjunct Associate Professor in Department of Family Science, School of Public Health, University of Maryland.. Background: Dr. Mendola earned her PhD in Epidemiology and Community Health from the University at Buffalo School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. Her dissertation research on environmental contaminant exposure through sport fish consumption and risk of fetal death was honored with the Student Prize Paper for both the ACE and the Society for Pediatric and Perinatal Epidemiologic Research (SPER) for 1994. Since joining the College, she has served on the Communication and Public Relations committee (1995 to 1998), the Membership Committee (2000-2004) including chairing that committee 2002-2003, and the Mentoring Committee (2006-2009). A focus on strong mentoring has been a notable feature of Dr. Mendola's service to the ACE. Two of Dr. Mendola's students have won the ACE Student Prize (2004 and 2005) and she was honored with an ACE Model Mentor Award in 2006 for excellence in student mentoring. Her students have also won the SPER (2002) and SER (2005) Student Prize Paper Awards. She was a Roundtable Leader in an ACE Education Forum (2002) discussing "Faculty position vs. post-doctoral fellowship: Pros and cons" and was a panel member for an ACE Career Mentoring Forum Roundtable (2008), speaking on "Government and public sector: Academia, government, industry - which is the best fit for me?" In addition to her service to ACE, Dr. Mendola is the Past-President of the SPER and currently serves as the Mentoring Subcommittee Chair for the 2001 Epidemiology Congress Planning Committee. Statement: I have genuinely appreciated the opportunities I've had to serve the ACE, particularly in the area of mentoring. The College has shown real leadership in advocating for strong mentoring and career development for students and junior faculty. I would continue to work with the Board to coordinate mentoring activities across societies (using my work with the Epi Congress committee to leverage our College efforts) and would also support the implementation of a formal Mentoring Program in the College (something that has been in the works since my early days in ACE).
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Julie Goodman, Ph.D., DABT is the Director of Epidemiology at Gradient, an environmental and risk science consulting firm, and is an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health. She earned a Sc.M. in epidemiology and a Ph.D. in toxicology from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and is a Diplomate of the American Board of Toxicology. Before joining Gradient, Dr. Goodman was a Cancer Prevention Fellow at the National Cancer Institute, where she conducted molecular epidemiology studies on colon cancer risk. She was also instrumental in the development of Polymorphism Interaction Analysis, a powerful statistical tool for cancer risk assessment.
Background: In her dual role as an epidemiologist and toxicologist, Dr. Goodman's primary focus at Gradient includes the design, oversight, analysis, and interpretation of epidemiology studies, and the evaluation of chemical toxicology data, apparent disease clusters, and chemical exposures. Dr. Goodman has published the results of her analyses in several peer-reviewed epidemiology and toxicology journals, and has presented them to community groups and regulatory and legislative bodies. Her epidemiology-related work at Gradient has included assessing the weight-of-evidence regarding causation for substances in consumer products and the environment, such as asbestos, nickel, and criteria air pollutants. At Harvard, she co-instructs a course entitled, "Research Synthesis & Meta-Analysis." Statement: The strength of the American College of Epidemiology lies in its membership, and the future of the organization depends on providing leadership for all epidemiologists, particularly those just starting their careers. As a member of the Board of Directors, I would encourage epidemiologists to consider their work as part of a larger context that includes assessing human health risks, particularly in the regulatory arena. Every epidemiology study needs to be considered in light of other epidemiology studies addressing the same topic, as well as other types of scientific research (e.g., toxicology, behavioral sciences, nutrition). Only when one considers all of these types of data together can one truly assess the state of the science. Regulators have traditionally relied primarily on toxicology studies in the past for determining human health risks from chemicals, but are increasingly relying on epidemiology data. Many organizations, including the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the European Centre for Ecotoxicology and Toxicology of Chemicals, for example, are developing frameworks for incorporating epidemiology data into risk assessment. As a board member, I would encourage ACE to play a large role in these discussions, to ensure that epidemiology data are used appropriately and to the fullest extent possible in the areas of risk assessment and regulation.
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