Our External Advisory Committee helps Duke’s Superfund Research Center to use practices in our research, training, research translation, and education/outreach.
If you are a current EAC member, please click here to access resources and information that we have made available for you.
Bruce Brownawell, PhD
Bruce Brownawell, PhD, has directed an active research program at Stony Brook University for 16 years, with funding from Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Office of Navel Research (ONR), the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Hudson River Foundation, and several not-for-profit organizations and consulting companies. Dr. Brownawell’s research lab is focused on the trace level detection, transport, fate, and biological effects of anthropogenic organic chemicals in natural waters. The lab uses mass spectrometry to determine sub-part-per-trillion concentrations of organic contaminants. Such trace level analyses provide new opportunities for addressing environmental quality research topics; e.g., whether female steroid hormones or hormone mimics exist in sufficient quantities to cause observed feminization of male or sexually immature fish; the potential toxicity of poorly soluble pyrethroid pesticides to marine crustaceans; potential uses of stable pharmaceuticals and surfactants as tracers of waste waters and sewage contaminated sediment; and better characterization of the toxicity to marine organisms of complex mixtures of anthropogenically-derived chemicals in the environment.
Kevin Crofton, PhD
Dr. Kevin Crofton is the Acting Deputy Director with EPA’s National Center for Computational Toxicology. He received his Ph.D. in Toxicology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1986. He has been working for the over 20 years as a neurotoxicologist at the US Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Research and Development in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. His research interests include developmental neurotoxicity, with an emphasis on the use of mode-of-action models to improve chemical mixtures risk assessments. He is an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Toxicology at North Carolina State University and the Curriculum in Toxicology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Crofton’s professional activities include membership in numerous scientific societies and participation on many professional review boards. He has presented invited lectures for a variety of government agencies in Europe, Canada, and the U.S., and for numerous professional societies and universities. In addition, he has authored or coauthored at least nine book chapters or reviews and over 125 peer reviewed publications.
Marcia Angle, MD, MPH
Marcia Angle is an environmental advocate and preventive medicine physician, who has published and worked in the area of international reproductive health. She was medical director at IntraHealth, focusing on Sub-Saharan Africa, for two decades. In North Carolina, she served as Medical Director of the Orange County Health Department, and taught environmental epidemiology at Duke University’s School of the Environment. Marcia has a BA from Harvard University, an MD from Duke University, and an MPH from the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health in Chapel Hill, NC. Marcia has served on the NatureServe Board of Directors since 2012 and serves on the board of directors for two other non-profits: Nourish International and the Southern Environmental Law Center. Additionally, she serves on two Advisory Councils: Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Gillings School of Global Public Health.
Pedro Alvarez, PhD
Dr. Pedro J. J. Alvarez is the George R. Brown Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Rice University and serves as the Director of the NSF ERC on Nanotechnology-Enabled Water Treatment (NEWT). His research interests include environmental applications and implications of nanotechnology, bioremediation of toxic chemicals, water footprint of biofuels, water treatment and reuse, and antibiotic resistance control. Dr. Alvarez currently serves on the advisory board of NSF Engineering Directorate and as Associate Editor of Environmental Science and Technology. He also serves as honorary professor at Nankai University in Tianjin and the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, China, and as adjunct professor at the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina in Florianopolis, Brazil. He recently completed service on the EPA’s Science Advisory Board.
Fawn Pattison
Ms. Pattison’s background and expertise is in public health, non-profit management, and grassroots advocacy for environmental health and justice. As an Environmental Health Policy Consultant, she works with organizations to help them have a bigger impact on public policies that affect their constituencies, particularly with regards to toxic chemicals and environmental health. Fawn serves on the Board of Directors of NC FIELD, a youth-led organization of migrant and seasonal farm workers in rural, eastern North Carolina that promotes better working conditions, educational attainment and alternatives to hazardous farm labor for youth.
Richard Peterson, PhD
Dr. Richard Peterson has 35 years of experience investigating the developmental toxicity of dioxin using laboratory rodent and zebrafish models. His research has been supported continuously during this time by NIEHS. Dr. Peterson is the past recipient of a RCDA and current recipient of a MERIT Award from NIEHS. More than 30 graduate students have received their PhD in his laboratory and an equal number of postdoctoral students have trained in the Peterson lab. Dr. Peterson has recently expanded his research on developmental toxicity in zebrafish to include nanomaterials. Dr. Peterson works in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Wisconsin.