About Us

The NIEHS Superfund Basic Research Program was conceived to address the scarcity of information about the health effects of low-level, continuous exposures to toxic chemicals. In 1987, scientists all over the country were funded to investigate how common chemicals like benzene and styrene in air, water, and soil could lead to devastating afflictions like cancer and birth defects.
 
UC Berkeley has been involved in the NIEHS Superfund Basic Research Program since its inception. In 1987, Dr. Martyn T. Smith, Professor of Toxicology in the School of Public Health, assembled a distinguished research team to study the fundamental relationships between exposure to chemicals and human illness and to apply discoveries to develop methods of remediating contaminants in air, water, and soil. The current program continues this endeavor by bringing together experts in the fields of engineering, chemistry, and molecular epidemiology from UC Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. These investigators lead six research projects and five support cores.

Lisa Alvarez-Cohen
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, UC Berkeley
Leader, Project 4: Application of comparative genomics, transcriptomics, and proteomics to optimize microbial reductive dehalogenation
 
Gary Andersen
Center for Environmental Biotechnology, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Leader, Project 4: Application of comparative genomics, transcriptomics, and proteomics to optimize microbial reductive dehalogenation
 
Patricia A. Buffler
Epidemiology, School of Public Health, UC Berkeley
Leader, Project 1: Biomarkers of chemical exposure and leukemia risk
 
Fiona Doyle
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, UC Berkeley
Leader, Project 6: Contaminant oxidation using nanoparticulate and granular zero-valent iron
 
Alan Hubbard
Biostatistics, School of Public Health, UC Berkeley
Leader, Core D: Computational Biology
 
James R. Hunt
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, UC Berkeley
Leader, Core B: Research Translation / Core E: Training
 
Catherine P. Koshland
Environmental Health Sciences, School of Public Health, UC Berkeley
Leader, Project 5: Nanotechnology-based environmental sensing / Core A: Administration / Core E: Research Training
 
Amy D. Kyle
Environmental Health Sciences, School of Public Health, UC Berkeley
Leader, Core B: Research Translation
 
Donald Lucas
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Leader, Project 5: Nanotechnology-based environmental sensing
 
David Sedlak
Civil & Environmental Engineering, UC Berkeley
Leader, Project 6: Contaminant oxidation using nanoparticulate and granular zero-valent iron
 
Christine Skibola
Environmental Health Sciences, School of Public Health, UC Berkeley
Core C: Toxicogenomics Laboratory
 
Allan H. Smith
Epidemiology, School of Public Health, UC Berkeley
Leader, Project 3: Arsenic biomarker epidemiology
 
Martyn T. Smith
Environmental Health Sciences, School of Public Health, UC Berkeley
Leader, Project 1: Biomarkers of chemical exposure and leukemia risk / Project 3: Arsenic biomarker epidemiology / Core A: Administration
 
Mark van der Laan
Biostatistics, School of Public Health, UC Berkeley
Leader, Core D: Computational Biology
 
Chris Vulpe
Department of Nutrtional Sciences and Toxicology, UC Berkeley
Leader, Project 2: Functional profiling of susceptibility genes / Core C: Toxicogenomics Laboratory
 
Luoping Zhang
Environmental Health Sciences, School of Public Health, UC Berkeley
Leader, Project 2: Functional profiling of susceptibility genes

Martyn T. Smith
Director/Principal Investigator
 
Catherine Koshland
Deputy Director
 
Minerva Reyes
Business Manager

Award Management and Budgets
Minerva Reyes
School of Public Health
University of California, Berkeley
140 Warren Hall #7360
Berkeley, CA 94720-7360
Tel: (510) 643-0823
Fax: (510) 642-5815
mreyes@berkeley.edu
 
Program Director
Martyn Smith
School of Public Health
University of California, Berkeley
140 Warren Hall #7360
Berkeley, CA 94720-7360
Tel: (510) 642-8770
Fax: (510) 642-0427
martynts@berkeley.edu