Course Developers
Dr. Wayne Cascio serves as Director of the Center for Public Health and Environmental Assessment (CPHEA) within EPA’s Office of Research and Development. Wayne is a physician/scientist who earned a B.A. from Johns Hopkins University, and an M.D. from the University of Maryland and is a cardiologist. Over 24 years in academia at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and East Carolina University he engaged in clinical, research, teaching, and administrative activities. Currently, in addition to his administrative work he continues to be engaged in the study of the health effects of environmental pollutants for the purpose of informing risk assessment, risk-management decisions, and improving public health through increased environmental health communication and literacy.
Susan Lyon Stone is a Senior Environmental Health Scientist with EPA’s Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards in the Ambient Standards Group, which reviews the national ambient air quality standards. She was team leader for the 2015 review of the ozone standards, and has also worked on the reviews of the standards for particulate matter and sulfur dioxide. She is the Air Quality Index (AQI) team leader, has coauthored many of EPA’s public information documents about the AQI, the health effects of criteria pollutants, and she has given presentations across the U.S. and internationally on these subjects. Ms. Stone is the project lead for multi-agency team revising the document Wildfire Smoke: A Guide for Public Health Officials, is a contributor to EPA wildfire health research, and is the co-lead for a study (National-Scale Activity Survey) that evaluated the effectiveness of AQI advisories in changing public behavior. She has an M.S. from the School of Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Jason Sacks is a Senior Epidemiologist in the Health and Environmental Effects Assessment Division (HEEAD) within the Center for Public Health and Environmental Assessment (CPHEA) in the Office of Research and Development (ORD) at the U.S. EPA. Jason has over 13 years of experience working on Integrated Science Assessments (ISAs). He is the Science Lead on the health effects of particulate matter (PM) within HEEAD and the Assessment Lead for the 2019 Particulate Matter (PM) Integrated Science Assessment (ISA). Jason also plays key leadership roles in synthesizing and integrating the health effects evidence of air pollution for various National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) reviews. Jason has a B.A. in Biology from Rutgers University and a Master of Public Health (M.P.H.) from Johns Hopkins University – Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Dr. James S. Brown is a Senior Health Scientist in the Health and Environmental Effects Assessment Division (HEEAD) within the Center for Public Health and Environmental Assessment (CPHEA) in the Office of Research and Development (ORD) at the U.S. EPA. He received a MSPH (1991) and PhD (2000) from the School of Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH). Prior to joining NCEA in December 2003, he was a Research Associate for the Center for Environmental Medicine, Asthma, and Lung Biology at UNC-CH and conducted research on the transport, deposition, and clearance of particles and gases in healthy individuals and patients with a variety of respiratory diseases. As part of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) reviews, Dr. Brown has served as a chapter/section manager and author for science assessments of lead, nitrogen dioxide, ozone, particulate matter, and sulfur dioxide. He has authored multiple papers and book chapters on particle dosimetry in the human respiratory tract. In 2006, he served as a Monograph Working Group member evaluating the carcinogenic risk to humans from exposure to carbon black, titanium dioxide, and non-asbestiform talc for the International Agency for Research on Cancer. He has received numerous awards for his research and contributions to particulate matter assessments including a U.S. EPA Gold Medal and a Young Investigator Award from the International Society for Aerosols in Medicine.
Ellen Wildermann is as an Environmental Engineer with U.S. EPA's Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards (OAQPS). She develops training and outreach materials on ozone and particle pollution for a variety of audiences, including health care providers. She received a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Notre Dame in 1989 and an MSPH degree from the School of Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1997.
