Graduate Programs at UC Irvine
I recruit students primarily through the
Graduate Program in Environmental Health Sciences. I am also affiliated with
the following graduate programs:
Statistics,
and Public Health.
Research Interests
Methods in environmental health: probabilistic models and statistical
methods for exposure assessment, environmental epidemiology, and
risk/decision analysis
PFAS Projects
Much of our research group's recent work is centered on characterizing exposures and
pharmacokinetics of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in humans, and their
relationships to a variety of health outcomes. This includes our detailed
reconstruction
of historical exposures for the C8 Studies in West
Virginia and Ohio, pharmacokinetic studies
of perflurooctanoate, US-wide analysis of the
relationship between PFAS water concentrations and birthweight, critical review of
published studies on
PFAS and cancer, and many other exposure science and epidemiology studies of PFAS. Our work
in this area has been funded by a variety of sources, and we are currently working with our local
community and the CDC to study PFAS exposures and
health effects in Orange County communities,
as part of a national
multi-site study.
Exposure Science Projects
Our group's interest in exposure science methods centers on the development and
application of statistical methods for estimating chemical exposure rates
using environmental fate and transport models, behavioral data, and biomarkers
such as blood lead, hair mercury, or urinary pesticide metabolites. One major
challenge in this area is that the computational complexity and large number of
parameters in toxicokinetic models (using systems of differential
equations) makes formal statistical estimation difficult in settings with
complex exposure variation over time. Much of our research
is centered on the use of
discrete linear approximations to
more complex continuous-time models, facilitating formal statistical
estimation using estimating
equations and Bayesian approaches. Application of these
methods include epidemiologic studies of environmental exposures to
mercury and
perfluorooctanoate.
Spatial Epidemiology Projects We also collaborate with the Spatial Epidemiology Research Group on a variety of projects.
Preferred Skills/Qualifications for Prospective Students