The Blacksmith Institute: Technical Advisory Board

Mercury Program:

Lead Program:

Chromium and
Tanneries Program:

Projects By:

Technical Advisory Board

Margrit von Braun Ph.D. P.E.
Administrative Dean and Founder, Environmental Science Program, University of Idaho.

Dr. von Braun is the Associate Dean of the College of Graduate Studies and has been on the University of Idaho faculty since 1980 (curriculum vitae.pdf). She received her BS in Engineering Science and Mechanics at the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1974, her MCE in Civil Engineering at the University of Idaho in 1980, and her Ph.D. in Civil/Environmental Engineering in 1989 at Washington State University. She was awarded the College of Engineering Outstanding Faculty Award in 1992. Dr. von Braun was a Kellogg National Leadership Fellow from 1993 to 1996. Her research areas include human health risk assessment, hazardous waste site characterization with a focus on sampling dust contaminated with heavy metals, and risk communication.

Pat Breysse, M.D.
Director of the Division of Environmental Health Engineering
Department of Environmental Health Sciences
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Pat Breysse is currently the Director of the ABET accredited Industrial Hygiene Program and is the Associate Director of the Center for Childhood Asthma in the Urban Environment. In this context, most of Dr. Breysse's research concentrates on exposure assessment with a resulting emphasis on public health problem solving particularly in the workplace. Exposure assessment research includes pollutant source characterization, exposure measurement and interpretation, development and use of biomarkers of exposure/dose/effect, and evaluating relationships between sources, exposures, doses and disease. Dr. Breysse's research contribution has included investigations of electron microscopic methods for asbestos analysis, and the development and evaluation of optical and electron microscopic analytical methods for synthetic vitreous fibers exposure assessments.

Jack Caravanos, Ph.D., CIH, CSP
Director, MS/MPH program in Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences
Hunter College

Jack Caravanos is an Assistant Professor at Hunter College of the City University of New York where he directs the MS and MPH program in Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences. He received his Master of Science from Polytechnic University in NYC and proceeded to earn his Doctorate in Public Health (Env Health) from Columbia University's School of Public Health in 1984. Dr. Caravanos holds certification in industrial hygiene (CIH) and industrial safety (CSP) and prides himself as being an "environmental health practitioner". He specializes in lead poisoning, mold contamination, asbestos and community environmental health risk.

Dr. Caravanos has extensive experience in variety of urban environmental and industrial health problems and is often called upon to assist in environmental health assessments (i.e. lead/zinc smelter in Mexico, health risks at the World Trade Center, ground water contamination in NJ and municipal landfill closures in Brooklyn). Presently he is on the technical advisory panel of the Citizens Advisory Committee for the Brooklyn-Queens Aquifer Feasibility Study (a NYC Department of Environmental Protection sponsored community action committee evaluating health risks associated with aquifer restoration).

Josh Ginsberg, Ph.D.
Director of Asia Programs, Wildlife Conservation Society

As Director of Asia Programs at the Wildlife Conservation Society, Josh Ginsberg oversees 100 projects in 16 countries. He received a B.S. from Yale, and holds an M.A. and Ph.D. from Princeton. Dr. Ginsberg spent 17 years as a field biologist/conservationist working in Asia and Africa on a variety of wildlife issues. He has held faculty positions at Oxford University, University College London, is an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University, and is the author of over 40 reviewed papers and three books on wildlife conservation, ecology and evolution.

David J. Green
Owner and CEO of Phoenix Soil, LLC; United Retek of CT LLC; American Lamp Recycling, LLC; Green Globe, LLC; and Jayjet Transportation, LLC.

David Green received his M.ed in chemistry and has owned and operated hazardous waste remediation companies since 1979. His companies have conducted in-situ and ex-situ treatments of hazardous materials on over 16,700 sites in the US, China, UK, and central Europe. The technologies incorporated include, low temperature thermal desorption, solidification/stabilization and chemical treatment.

David serves as Chairman of the Local Emergancy Planning Commision and the Director of Operations for the Connecticut's Department of Homeland Security USAR Team.

Loren Habeggar
Associate Division Director, Environmental Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory

Dr. Habeggar recieved his M.S. in Nuclear Engineering from Purdue University in 1965 and his Ph.D. from Purdue University in Nuclear Engineering in1968. As Associate Division Director, technical responsibilities focus on providing leadership to the Division’s internationalenvironmental science and technology program. In this role, since 2002 have served as principal investigator supporting the U.S. EPA in collaborative hazardous waste management studies in Russia. Serve as advisor to the health and safety risk program at Argonne focusing on development of methods for conducting and communicating risk assessment and risk management, scientific investigations providing basic data used in risk analysis, and the evaluation of risks as input to decision making. Management responsibilities include providing leadership in the review and implementation of various division policies and procedures, including for human resources, quality assurance, and communications; assists the Division Director in the formulation of these policies and procedures.

David Hanrahan, M.Sc.
Director - Global Programs, the Blacksmith Institute

David Hanrahan oversees the technical design and implementation for Blacksmith of over 40 projects in 14 countries. Prior to joining Blacksmith, David worked at the World Bank for twelve years on a broad range of environmental operations and issues, across all the Bank’s regions. During much of this time he was based in the central Environment Department where he held technical and managerial positions and participated in and led teams on analytical work and lending operations.

Before joining the World Bank, he had twenty years of experience in international consultancy, during which time he also earned post graduate degrees in policy analysis and in environmental economics. His professional career began in Britain in water resources for a major international engineering consultant. He then moved to Australia to build the local branch of that firm, where he helped to develop a broad and varied practice for public and private sector clients. He later returned to the UK and became Development Director for an environmental consultancy and subsequently Business Manager for a firm of applied economics consultants. In 1994 he was recruited by the World Bank to join its expanding Environment Department.

David Hunter, Sc.D.
Professor of Epidemiology and Nutrition, Harvard University School of Public Health

Dr. Hunter received an M.B.B.S. (Australian Medical Degree) from the University of Sydney. He continued his formal education at Harvard University, receiving his Sc.D. in 1988. Dr. Hunter is a Professor of Epidemiology and Nutrition, Harvard School of Public Health. Dr. Hunter is involved with several large, population-based cohort studies, including the Nurses' Health Study (I and II), Health Professionals Follow-up Study, and the Physicians' Health Study. Among the goals of these large cohort studies is to investigate gene-environment interactions, including the impact of lifestyle factors, on disease causation. Disease endpoints of interest for some of these cohorts include cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and osteoporosis. He is also involved in long running studies of nutritional influences on HIV progression in Tanzania.

Donald E. Jones

Donald Jones is the founder of Quality Environmental Solutions, Inc. and was previously Director of the IT Corporation national program for clients with hydrocarbon-related environmental problems and development of environmental management programs. He has served as an elected Board of Health member and was appointed as Right-To-Know and Hazardous Waste Coordinator in the State of Massachusetts. Mr. Jones currently serves on the Local Water Board, as technical consultant to the local Facilities Board and provides editorial review of technical papers and publications for the National Ground Water Association.

Mukesh Khare

Dr. Mukesh Khare is a Professor at the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi. He is a recognized consultant to many Indian and international bodies like the Central Pollution Control Board, Oil & Natural Gas Commission, National Thermal Power Corporation, Nuclear Power Corporation, (India); Associates in Rural Development, Virginia, USA. He has published more than 30 research publications in international & national journals and conferences. Dr. Khare is listed in several prestigious biographical sources published by the American Biographical Institute, USA and International Biographical Center, UK.

Philip J. Landrigan, M.D., M.Sc.
Director, Center for Children's Health and the Environment,
Chair, Department of Community and Preventive Medicine, and
Director, Environmental and Occupational Medicine, Mount Sinai School of Medicine

Dr. Landrigan is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. He is Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of Industrial Medicine and previously was Editor of Environmental Research. From 1988 to 1993, Dr. Landrigan chaired a National Academy of Sciences Committee whose final report—Pesticides in the Diets of Infants and Children—provided the principal intellectual foundation for the Food Quality Protection Act of 1996. From 1995 to 1997, Dr. Landrigan served on the Presidential Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veteran's Illnesses. From 1997 to 1998, Dr. Landrigan served as Senior Advisor on Children's Health to the Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. He was responsible at EPA for establishing a new Office of Children's Health Protection.

From 1970 to 1985, Dr. Landrigan served as a commissioned officer in the United States Public Health Service. He served as an Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer and then as a Medical Epidemiologist with the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. In his years at the CDC, Dr. Landrigan participated in epidemiologic studies of measles and rubella; directed research and developed activities for the Global Smallpox Eradication Program; and established and directed the Environmental Hazards Branch of the Bureau of Epidemiology. While at CDC, Dr. Landrigan also served for one year as a field epidemiologist in El Salvador and for another year in northern Nigeria. From 1979 to 1985, as Director of the Division of Surveillance, Hazard Evaluations and Field Studies of the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health in Cincinnati, he directed the U.S. national program in occupational epidemiology.

Dr. Landrigan obtained his medical degree from the Harvard Medical School in 1967. He interned at Cleveland Metropolitan General Hospital and completed a residency in Pediatrics at the Children's Hospital Medical Center in Boston. He obtained a Master of Science in occupational medicine and a Diploma of Industrial Health from the University of London.

Ian von Lindern Ph.D
CEO and Chariman, Terra Graphics Environmental Engineering, Inc.

Dr. Ian von Lindern received his B.S. in Chemical Engineering (1971) from Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA; and his M.S. in Biometeorology and Atmospheric Studies (1973) and Ph.D. in Environmental Science and Engineering (1980) from Yale University, New Haven , CT. Dr. von Lindern has 30 years of environmental engineering and science experience in Idaho. He has directed over 30 major environmental investigations, involving solvent contamination of groundwater in the Southwest, an abandoned petroleum refinery, secondary smelters and battery processors, landfills, uranium mill tailings, and several major lead sites including: Dallas, TX; the Niagara and Riverdale Projects in Toronto, Canada; the Marjol Battery Site in Throop, PA; ASARCO/Tacoma, WA; East Helena and Butte/Anaconda in MT; Anzon Industries in Philadelphia, PA and the Rudnaya Pristan-Dalnegorsk Mining District, Russian Far East. Through TerraGraphics, Dr. von Lindern has worked continually for Idaho Department of Environmental Quality on various projects since the company’s inception in 1984. He has been the lead Risk Assessor for the Bunker Hill Superfund Site in north Idaho, communicating associated risk issues at many public meetings in the community. In the last few years, Dr. von Lindern directed and completed the Union Pacific Railroad “Rails-to-Trails Risk Assessment;” the exhaustive Five-Year Review of the Populated Areas of the BHSS; the Human Health Risk Assessment for the Basin; and several other technical tasks. Dr. von Lindern has served as a U.S. EPA Science Advisory Board (SAB) Member on three occasions: the Review Subcommittee for Urban Soil Lead Abatement Demonstration Project, 1993; the Subcommittee Assessing the Consistency of Lead Health Regulations in U.S. EPA Programs, Special Report to the Administrator, 1992; and the Review Subcommittee Assessing the Use of the Biokinetic Model for Lead Absorption in Children at RCRA/CERCLA Sites, 1988. He also served on the U.S. EPA Clean Air Scientific Advisory

Bill Lorenz
Former Director, Environmental Resources Management, Young Leaders Programme Director, GIFT

Ira May
Ira May has worked as a geologist with the U.S. Army Environmental Center for more than twenty years. He has extensive experience with the clean up of hazardous waste sites at army facilities throughout the United States. Mr. May serves as a reviewer for the Groundwater magazine, a publication of the National Ground Water Association and is Vice Chairman of the Long Term Monitoring Committee of the Geotechnical Institute, American Society of Civil Engineers.

Paul Roux
CEO and founder, Roux Associates, Inc. (www.rouxinc.com)

Paul Roux received an M.A. in Geology from Queens College, City University of New York, and a B.S. in Engineering Science from C.W. Post College, Long Island University. He is a certified Professional Geologist and Hydrogeologist, has served on the Editorial Board of Ground Water Monitoring and Remediation and currently serves on the Board of Registration of the American Institute of Hydrology

Mr. Roux has over 35 years of experience with contaminated soil and groundwater remediation at industrial plants and landfills. He has worked at a number of the largest and most complex Superfund sites in the US, as well as major chemical and petroleum facilities. Roux Associates, which was founded in 1981, currently has more than 230 professional employees in five offices. The firm provides a broad range of consulting and project management services to solve complex environmental, health, and safety problems associated with air, water, land and interior pollution; hazardous materials; and toxic waste treatment and disposal. Roux Associates was twice named as one of America's 500 fastest-growing private companies by Inc. Magazine and, since 1996, has been listed as one of the Top 200 Environmental Consulting Firms by Engineering News Record.

Leona D. Samson, Ph.D.
Ellison American Cancer Society Research Professor
Director, Center for Environmental Health Sciences
Professor of Biological Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Leona Samson received her Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from University College, London University, and received postdoctoral training in the United States at UCSF and UC Berkeley. After serving on the faculty of the Harvard School of Public Health for eighteen years, she joined the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2001 as a Professor of Biological Engineering and the Director of the Center for Environmental Health Sciences. Dr. Samson's research has focused on how cells, tissues and animals respond to environmental toxicants. Dr. Samson has been the recipient of numerous awards during her career, including the Burroughs Wellcome Toxicology Scholar Award (1993-98); the Charlotte Friend Women in Cancer Research Award (2000); the Environmental Mutagen Society Annual Award for Research Excellence (2001). In 2001, Dr. Samson was named the American Cancer Society Research Professor, one of the most prestigious awards given by the society. The ACS Professorship was subsequently underwritten by the Ellison Foundation of Massachusetts. In 2003, she was elected as a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of Science, and she will become the President of the Environmental Mutagen Society in 2004.

Brian Wilson
Position: Program Manager
Organization: International Lead Management Center
Designation: MRSC - Member of the Royal Society of Chemistry

Brian Wilson is the Program Manager for the International Lead Management Center located in North Carolina, USA. He is responsible for the design and implementation of multi-stakeholder lead risk reduction programs. Before joining the ILMC he worked for 15 years with the oil industry followed by 18 years with MIM Holdings in the Metals Industry. He left the United Kingdom and MIM UK as the Group Personnel Manager in 1996 to join ILMC after a career that spanned smelter production, industrial relations and human resource management.

Brian has worked with UNEP, UNCTAD and the Basel Secretariat on Lead Risk Reduction and Recycling projects in the Far East, Russia, Central and South America, the Caribbean and West Africa.