LEADER Primary Investigators
Dana Boyd Barr, PhD
Co-Founder, Co-Director, Professor
After a 23-year career with CDC and 5 years as Emory/RSPH adjunct faculty, Dr. Barr accepted a faculty appointment at Emory's RSPH in 2010. Dr. Barr is the Director of the Targeted Analysis Core of the NIH-funded Human Exposome Research Center (HERCULES) and the Biomarker Core of the Household Air Pollution Intervention Network Trial (HAPIN). Her other research focuses on understanding prenatal exposures and neurodevelopment in a Southeast Asian birth cohort, the SAWASDEE study, in Thailand and in an SES-diverse Atlanta African American birth cohort. Dr. Barr also a Deputy Editor for Environmental Health Perspectives.
P. Barry Ryan, PhD
Co-Founder, Co-Director, Professor Emeritus
Dr. Ryan joined Emory University’s Gangarosa Department of Environmental Health in 1995 after a 14-year career at Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health. He has been involved with numerous large-scale investigations of environmental exposures and their impact on human health. His focus in these studies has been on developing physical and statistical modeling systems relating exposures to environmental contaminants through various media using both laboratory and data analytic methods with a primary interest in children through work with the National Children’s, the SAWASDEE study in Thailand, and the Center for Children’s Health- Environment, Microbiomes, and Metabolomics (CCHEM2) study.
Amina Salamova, PhD.
Co-Director, Assistant Professor
Dr. Salamova is an Assistant Professor in the Gangarosa Department of Environmental Health in the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University. Prior to joining Emory, Dr. Salamova was an Associate Scientist in the O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University Bloomington. Dr. Salamova uses analytical chemistry and novel exposure assessment tools to investigate environmental exposures to harmful chemical contaminants and their effects on human health. She specifically focuses on exposures to a large group of organic contaminants, semi-volatile organic compounds (SVOCs), in vulnerable populations, such as children, older adults, indigenous and rural communities. Dr. Salamova’s research interests focus on determining exposure sources of well-known and emerging SVOCs and on developing effective interventions to prevent or reduce these exposures. Her research is funded by the United States National Institutes of Health, Environmental Protection Agency, and Department of Agriculture. Dr. Salamova has published over 50 peer-reviewed publications and presented her research at numerous national and international professional conferences. She received the Joan Daisey Outstanding Young Scientist Award from the International Society of Exposure Science in 2021.
Parinya Panuwet, PhD, MS, MPH
Co-Director, Research Assistant Professor
My research focuses on implementing a paradigm shift in exposure assessment strategies using the available metabolomic tools and mass spectrometry to enable an accurate measurement of multiple environmentally relevant toxic compounds in humans and the environment. My research work also covers biomonitoring, risk assessment, and environmental policy analysis. For the past years, I have contributed to the development and improvement of the analytical capacity for the accurate assessment of human exposures to multiple toxic chemicals in the environments such as phthalates, phenols, pesticides, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon, tobacco-related toxicants, flame retardants (PBDEs, OPFR), per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, and heavy metals.
