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New experts join HEI's Research and Review Committees
HEI’s Board of Directors recently approved the appointments of three distinguished scientists to the Research Committee and two to the Review Committee. In collaboration with HEI staff, these committees perform distinct and independent roles to ensure the quality and integrity of HEI’s research. The Research Committee oversees new and ongoing research projects; the Review Committee critically reviews the results. Members can serve a maximum of two four-year terms.
New Research Committee members
Heather A. Holmes is an associate professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Utah. Her research focuses on transdisciplinary investigations of processes that govern the transport of atmospheric pollutants. Specifically, her research group uses ground-based sensors, atmospheric models, and satellite remote sensing to investigate atmospheric physics, air pollution sources, and transport and dispersion ultimately to provide data for human health and public policy assessments. Her most recent research efforts include incorporating air quality modeling estimates in health effects studies, using satellite remote sensing to model surface pollutant concentrations downwind of wildfires, developing data fusion techniques to improve air pollution exposure estimates, and improving atmospheric parameterizations in meteorological and air quality models. She has numerous peer-review publications and has received many awards for her scholarly activities, including a National Science Foundation CAREER award and a Fulbright scholar award. Holmes received a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the University of Utah.
Evangelia (Evi) Samoli is an associate professor of epidemiology and medical statistics at the Medical School of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece. Her research interests include environmental epidemiology that focuses on the health effects of air pollution, statistical methods for the analysis of time-series and longitudinal data in environmental epidemiology, and cancer epidemiology that focuses on the investigation of risk factors for developing cancer.
Samoli has been a member of committees for the World Health Organization, the European Commission, and HEI. She is a member of international scientific societies that are active in environmental epidemiology issues and has published more than 145 peer-reviewed articles in international journals. She received an M.Sc. in social statistics from the University of Southampton, United Kingdom, and her Ph.D. in epidemiology from the Medical School of the University of Athens.
Gregory Wellenius is a professor of environmental health at the Boston University School of Public Health. His research focuses on assessing the human health impacts of the built environment in the context of a rapidly changing climate.
Wellenius' research has contributed to scientific understanding of the health risks associated with air pollution, noise pollution, other features of the physical environment, and those posed by a changing climate. He has published more than 150 peer-reviewed articles and is currently the associate editor of Epidemiology and Environmental Epidemiology. He received a Sc.D. in environmental health and epidemiology from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
New Review Committee members
Sara D. Adar is 
an associate professor and the associate chair of epidemiology at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. Her research focuses on the human health effects of air pollution, particularly cardiovascular, pulmonary, and cognitive health effects. She has a growing interest in identifying intervention strategies to reduce exposures and improve health.
Adar has served as an expert panelist for the Environmental Protection Agency, including participation in the development of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards for particulate matter and sulfur oxides. She received the Sandra A. Daugherty Award for Excellence in Cardiovascular Epidemiology from the American Heart Association and the Excellence in Teaching Award from the University of Michigan School of Public Health. She is the author of numerous peer-review publications, is a former member of the executive board of the International Society of Environmental Epidemiology and serves as an associate editor of Environmental Health Perspectives.
Adar received a B.S. in environmental engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, an M.H.S. in environmental health from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and an Sc.D. from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Eric J. Tchetgen Tchetgen is the Luddy Family President’s Distinguished Professor and a professor of statistics and data science at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. His primary area of interest is in semiparametric efficiency theory with application to causal inference, missing data problems, statistical genetics, and mixed model theory. He develops statistical and epidemiologic methods that make efficient use of the information in data collected by scientific investigators, while avoiding unnecessary assumptions about their underlying data-generating mechanism.
Tchetgen Tchetgen has received numerous awards and honors, has more than 200 peer-reviewed publications, is an associate editor of the American Journal of Epidemiology, and serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of the American Statistical Association, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Observational Studies, and Journal of Casual Inference. He received a Ph.D. in biostatistics from Harvard University.
More about HEI’s research and review process is available here. For complete committee membership rosters, see About HEI.
