Center Experts
Investigators
Frederica Perera, Dr.P.H., Director
Dr. Perera is Professor in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at the Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University. She pioneered the field of molecular epidemiology and is internationally recognized for her research on environmental causes of cancer and developmental disorders including the effects of ambient air pollution, environmental tobacco smoke, and pesticides on health outcomes in children. Dr. Perera is the Principal Investigator of the Center's study of health effects of environmental pollutants on pregnant mothers and children.
Robin Whyatt, Dr.P.H., Co-Deputy Director
Dr. Whyatt is Assistant Professor of Clinical Public Health in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at the Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University. Her research interest has been the effects of environmental exposures on women and children, including the developing fetus. Dr. Whyatt's particular interest is the health effects of exposures to contemporary-use pesticides during pregnancy. She collaborates with the Centers for Disease Control on the validation of biomarkers of prenatal pesticide exposure. Dr. Whyatt is Co-Deputy of the Center and Co-Principal Investigator on its study of health effects of environmental pollutants on pregnant women and children.
Virginia Rauh, Sc.D., Co-Deputy Director
Dr. Rauh is a perinatal epidemiologist and Associate Professor in the Department of Population and Family Health at the Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University. Her work has focused on the reproductive health outcomes of inner-city women in an effort to understand factors at the individual and community levels contributing to low birth weight, pre-term delivery and early child development. Dr. Rauh is the Principal Investigator on the Center’s project evaluating air pollution effects on fetal growth and child development. She is also Co-Deputy Director of the Center and a Co-Principal Investigator on the study of health effects of environmental pollutants on pregnant mothers and children.
Rachel L. Miller, M.D., Director, Asthma Project, Associate Director and lead physician scientist, DISCOVER Initiative
Dr. Miller is Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine and Environmental Health Sciences in the Department of Pulmonary, Allergy & Critical Medicine at the College of Physicians & Surgeons, Columbia University. Her research focuses on mechanisms for the onset of asthma and her clinical work specializes in the treatment of asthma and allergies. Dr. Miller’s work at the Center is determining the importance of environmental allergen and pollutant exposure to the onset of allergies, asthma and immune responses. Dr. Miller’s website.
Howard Andrews, Ph.D., Director, Data Management, Statistics & Community Impact Modeling Core
Dr. Andrews is Associate Clinical Professor of Biostatistics at Columbia University and Research Scientist at New York State Psychiatric Institute. He directs the Data Management, Statistics & Community Impact Modeling Core of the Center. Dr. Andrews established and developed the Data Coordinating Center at the Mailman School of Public Health, which currently provides comprehensive data management and statistical services to four major centers on the Columbia Medical Center campus. He is co-director of the Research Information Services Consortium at NY State Psychiatric Institute. Dr. Andrews specializes in the management and analysis of large public data sets, in the development of web-based data management systems for clinical trials, and in structuring web-based data dissemination systems.
Ginger Chew, Sc.D.
Dr. Chew is an Assistant Professor at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, as well as an investigator on the Community-Based Intervention Project at the CCCEH. She obtained her Doctorate of Science in Environmental Microbiology from the Harvard School of Public Health and completed post-doctoral studies in the Netherlands. Dr. Chew is also the principal investigator of a grant investigating indoor allergen exposure among Puerto Ricans children living in New York City, as well as a co-investigator on three other large-scale epidemiologic studies of allergens and childhood asthma. Among her most recent publications was a cockroach and mouse allergen avoidance study conducted in NYC Housing Authority apartments that was funded in part by the CCCEH. In addition to research projects, Dr. Chew has served as the Chair of the Environment committee for the NYC Asthma Partnership which is a coalition of government agencies, research institutions, health care providers, and community groups focused on reducing asthma in NYC.
David Evans, Ph.D., Director, Community-Based Intervention Research Project
Dr. Evans is Professor of Clinical Sociomedical Sciences at the Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons and the Mailman School of Public Health. Dr. Evans has extensive experience conducting research to improve the health status of minority children and reduce asthma morbidity through the development of educational programs for both patients and health professionals. He directs the Community-Based Intervention Research Project which is testing the effectiveness of integrated pest management to reduce pests in New York City public housing.
Robin Garfinkel, Ph.D.
Dr. Garfinkel is a biostatistician at the Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons’ Data Coordinating Center, as well as an investigator on the Data Management, Statistics & Community Impact Modeling Core at the CCCEH. Dr. Garfinkel received her doctorate from Columbia University, which focused on psychological measurement, evaluation, and research design. Her work in statistics and psychometrics has contributed enormously to the data analysis efforts at the CCCEH.
Julie B. Herbstman, Ph.D., Sc.M., Director, World Trade Center Pregnancy Study
Dr. Herbstman is an environmental epidemiologist and a research fellow in the Department of Environmental Health Science at the Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University. Dr. Herbstman’s research focuses on the impact of prenatal exposures to persistent organic pollutants and procarcinogenetic chemicals on child growth and development. She also collaborates on studies involving the integration of epigenetic biomarkers to explore the mechanistic pathway between prenatal exposures and disease risk.
Lori A. Hoepner, M.P.H., Deputy Director of Organizational and Analytical Data Management
Ms. Hoepner is the data manager for the New York City cohort and a Senior
Staff Associate Officer of Research with the Department of Environmental
Health Science at the Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University.
Ms. Hoepner has extensive experience with complex datasets, having managed
health research data at the Data Coordinating Center at the Mailman School
of Public Health since 1999. Prior to joining Columbia University, Ms.
Hoepner spent three years as a Public Health Epidemiologist with the New
York City Department of Health. Ms. Hoepner’s co-authorship on a
substantial number of publications attests to the significant contributions
she has made as a member of the Data Management, Statistics & Community
Impact Modeling Core at the CCCEH. Ms. Hoepner holds a Master of Public
Health from Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. 
Wieslaw Jedrychowski, M.D., Ph.D.
Dr. Jedrychowski is Chair of the department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine and Professor of Epidemiology and Medicine at Jagiellonian University Collegium Medicum in Krakow, Poland. He obtained his M.D. Ph.D. from Copernicus Medical School in Krakow. Dr. Jedrychowski is co-investigator on two of the Columbia Center for Children’s Environmental Health’s projects, the NYC cohort and the Krakow cohort, for which he directly supervises enrollment and follow-up. Dr. Jedrychowski’s research interests include environmental risk factors and the occurrence of chronic respiratory diseases in children and adults, nutrition in cancer, epidemiologic methods and biological markers of exposure. Dr. Jedrychowski is member of the editorial board for International Journal of Occupational Medicine and Environmental Health, and Polish Epidemiologic Review and is Associate Editor for Environmental Health Perspectives. Dr. Jedrychowski has authored or co-authored about 300 research papers in the field of environmental epidemiology.
Patrick L. Kinney, Sc.D., Co-Director, Exposure Assessment Core
Dr. Kinney is Associate Professor in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at the Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University. He is an air pollution epidemiologist who has published extensively on the human health effects of ozone and particulate air pollution. He co-directs the Center’s project characterizing exposure concentrations of indoor and outdoor air pollution encountered by pregnant women and their infants enrolled in the Asthma and Growth & Development projects.
Sally Ann Lederman, Ph.D.
Dr. Lederman is Special Lecturer in the Institute of Human Nutrition and in the Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University. She is a specialist in clinical nutrition whose work has focused on the area of nutrition during pregnancy. She has been an elected member of the American Society for Nutrition Sciences since 1992. Dr. Lederman was previously the director of the Center’s World Trade Center Pregnancy Study, and continues to provide nutritional advice to the Center’s Growth & Development project.
Matthew Perzanowski, Ph.D.
Dr. Perzanowski is Assistant Professor of Environmental Health Sciences at the Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University. His research is focused on understanding exposures which lead to allergic sensitization and asthma. Dr. Perzanowski began his research career at a preeminent allergen exposure laboratory and participated in studies conducted in communities as different as inner-city Atlanta and rural Kenya. He continued with his doctoral research in northern Sweden at the Arctic Circle, where asthma is common but dust mites and cockroaches, exposure to which is important to asthma elsewhere, are not found. As a co-investigator on several established prospective cohort studies, his current research is exploring paradigms of exposures related to asthma in an area of the world with one of the highest prevalence of asthma, inner-city NYC. Dr. Perzanowski will also be serving as one of the primary investigators on the Center’s new DISCOVER Initiative.
Peggy Shepard, Co-Director, Community Outreach & Education Project
Ms. Shepard is Executive Director and Co-Founder of West Harlem Environmental Action, Inc. (WE ACT). Based in Northern Manhattan, WE ACT has worked since 1988 with citizen groups, community residents, environmentalists, and government agencies, as well as educational and medical institutions, to improve environmental protection and health in communities of color. Ms. Shepard is also Co-Chair of the Northeast Environmental Justice Network, a member of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences Advisory Council, and past Vice Chair of the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Deliang Tang, M.D., Dr.P.H., Director, Mothers and Children Study in China; Laboratory Director, Program in Molecular Epidemiology
Dr. Tang is Assistant Professor of Clinical Health in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at the Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University. Dr. Tang’s primary research interest is in predictive risk modeling for cancer, particularly focusing on genetic susceptibility and environmental exposures. Dr. Tang has extensive research experience in molecular epidemiology, specifically in lung, breast and prostate cancer, and children’s environmental exposure. His research also involves validating new biomarkers to use in cancer detection models.
Wei-Yann Tsai, Ph.D., Deputy Director, Data Management, Statistics & Community Impact Modeling Core
Dr. Tsai is Professor in the Department of Biostatistics at the Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University. He has extensive experience in the analysis of large datasets. Dr. Tsai also has expertise in survival analyses, analysis of incomplete data, Generalized Estimation Equations (GEE), and nonparametrics. Dr. Tsai oversees statistical analyses at the Center and advises Co-Investigators on all biostatistical aspects of study design.
Scientific Advisors
The Center’s Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) is comprised of scientists from several leading universities with expertise in pediatric asthma, neurodevelopment, and obesity, as well as environmental health, medical ethics and risk assessment. The SAB has been instrumental in guiding the content of the Center’s research and approaches for data analyses. SAB members are listed below with brief descriptions of their respective work:
J. Lawrence Aber, Ph.D. is the Director of the National Center for Children and Poverty. Formerly, he directed the Barnard Center for Toddler Development, co-directed the Columbia University Project on Children and War, and co-founded the Barnard-Columbia Center for Leadership in Urban Public Policy. Dr. Aber advises community-based programs for children and families as well as local, state and federal agencies and UNICEF on program and policy issues ranging from child care and child abuse to youth violence and community development. He is frequently invited to testify before Congress and inform the media and foundations about new child and family initiatives. His research interests focus on social, emotional, behavioral and cognitive development of children and youth at risk due to family and neighborhood poverty, exposure to violence, abuse and neglect, and parental psychopathology. Dr. Aber advises the Center in process and outcome evaluations.
David C. Bellinger, Ph.D., M.Sc., psychologist, is a Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School as well as Professor of Environmental Health at the Harvard School of Public Health. He is also a Senior Research Associate in Neurology in the Neuroepidemiology Unit at Children's Hospital in Boston where he serves as Director of Research in the Behavioral Pediatrics Fellowship Program. Dr. Bellinger's major areas of research interest are developmental impact of metabolic and chemical insults to the nervous system, neuropsychological toxicology and neurobehavioral sequelae of pediatric cardiac surgery. He has published numerous scientific papers and book chapters and is currently the epidemiology Section Editor for Neurotoxicology and Teratology. Dr. Bellinger has served on National Academy of Sciences committees on lead, methyl mercury and toxic gases, as well as WHO committees on lead, methyl mercury and cadmium. He offers extensive knowledge of toxicology and child development to the Center, advising researchers in the Growth & Development Core.
Paul Brandt-Rauf, M.D., Sc.D., Dr.P.H. is the Chairman of the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. His research concentrates on the role of oncoprotein products in environmental carcinogenesis. The alteration of cellular oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes plays an important role in the carcinogenic process, and the effects of these altered genes is mediated by their oncoprotein products. Major goals of this research are early cancer detection, based on oncoprotein analysis, and cancer prevention, based on oncoprotein-specific interventions. Dr. Brandt-Rauf is currently the Principal Investigator for four NIH-funded studies. He advises the Center on a range of molecular epidemiological issues.
T. Berry Brazelton, M.D., is a Professor of Pediatrics Emeritus at Harvard Medical School, and Co-Director of the Brazelton Touchpoints Center at Children's Hospital in Boston. The author of more than 200 scientific papers and chapters, and 35 books, Dr. Brazelton is considered to be one of the foremost authorities on pediatrics and child development. Dr. Brazelton was president of the Society for Research in Child Development for the 1987-1989 term, and the National Center for Clinical Infant Programs from 1988 to 1991. He has frequently appeared before Congressional committees in support of parental and medical leave bills and was appointed to the National Commission on Children in 1989, where he advocated with vigor for disadvantaged children. His distinctive efforts have resulted in numerous honorary awards. One of Dr. Brazelton’s most notable achievements in pediatrics is his Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale (NBAS), an evaluation tool used worldwide to assess not only the physical and neurological responses of newborns, but also their emotional well being and individual differences.
Ellen Crain, M.D., Ph.D. is a Professor in the Department of Pediatrics and Division of Emergency Medicine, as well as the Director of Pediatric Emergency Services and the Division of Emergency Medicine at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. Dr. Crain is distinguished as both a clinician and researcher in the management and reduction of morbidity in pediatric asthma. In 1994, Dr. Crain served as Principal Investigator of the National Estimate of the Prevalence of Undiagnosed Asthma in Children funded by the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America. Since 1991, Dr. Crain has served as principal investigator on two multicenter asthma studies funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the National Cooperative Inner-City Asthma Study (1991-1996) and the Inner-City Asthma Study (1997-2003). Dr. Crain also recently served as the chair of the Data Safety and Monitoring Board, NHLBI Grant “Social Support and Education in Asthma Follow-Up” at the St. Louis Children’s Hospital. Dr. Crain offers expertise to the Center on research design, as well as pediatric and asthma health issues.
Richard J. Deckelbaum, M.D. is the Robert R. Williams Professor of Nutrition, Professor of Epidemiology, and Professor of Pediatrics at Columbia University. He is also the Director of the Institute of Human Nutrition at Columbia. The major focus of Dr. Deckelbaum’s laboratory is to determine regulatory mechanisms for cell-lipid particle interaction, and cell cholesterol and triglyceride metabolism. Major areas of interest include: how fatty acids of different types, and triglceride-rich particles and model lipid emulsions of different composition modulate lipid interactions with cells and cell lipid metabolism, and regulatory steps of gene expression. Dr. Deckelbaum also coordinates programs related to the effects of varying nutrient intakes on expression of cardiovascular risk factors in children and adults and co-ordinates studies on the effect of diet on cardiovascular disease and other outcomes.. He recently served on the NIH Nutrition Study Section and the USA Dietary Guidelines Committee. He has chaired major task forces for national and international organizations that provide dietary guidelines to populations, and to individuals. Dr. Deckelbaum has published over 280 articles, reviews and book chapters. His recently released book Preventive Nutrition: The Comprehensive Guide for Health Professionals, 3rd Edition is impacting strongly on the academic community.
Dale Hattis, Ph.D. is a Research Professor with the Center for Technology, Environment and Development (CENTED) of the George Perkins Marsh Institute at Clark University. He has extensive expertise in the development and application of methodology to assess the health, ecological, and economic impacts of regulatory actions. Specifically, he has focused on developing methodology to incorporate interindividual variability data and quantitative mechanistic information into risk assessments for both cancer and non-cancer endpoints, and has published extensively in this field. Major current research projects include efforts to understand age-related differences in sensitivity to carcinogenesis and other effects. He has been appointed as a member of the Environmental Health Committee of the EPA Science Advisory Board, and for several years he has served as a member of the Food Quality Protection Act Science Review Board. He has also served as a member of the National Research Council Committee on Estimating the Health-Risk-Reduction Benefits of Proposed Air Pollution Regulations. He has been a councilor and is a Fellow of the Society for Risk Analysis, and serves on the editorial board of its journal, Risk Analysis. Dr. Hattis advises the Center in risk assessment.
Robert Mellins, M.D. Professor of Pediatrics, was formerly Director of the Pediatric Pulmonary Division. Early in his career, he developed the first poison control program in the United States. He has been president of the American Thoracic Society and the American Lung Association of New York. He has also chaired the task force on asthma of the nationwide American Lung Association. He recently served as the principal investigator of a large NHLBI-funded project working with the New York City Board of Education and Department of Health to improve the health of school children with asthma. Dr. Mellins is currently serving as a co-investigator with members of the CCCEH on two NIH-funded studies on asthma and allergen work, as well as a multicenter study funded by the Children’s Health Foundation. His breadth of experience in lung disease in general and asthma in particular have been invaluable to the Center’s work.
Virginia A. Sharpe, Ph.D. is a Medical Ethicist at The National Center for Ethics in Health Care of the Veterans Health Administration, Washington, D.C. She was formerly the Director of the Project on Integrity in Science at the Center for Science in the Public Interest in Washington, DC as well as the Deputy Director and Associate for Biomedical and Environmental Ethics at the Hastings Center in Garrison, NY. Her work at CSPI focuses on sound science and the establishment of more robust norms regarding conflict-of-interest disclosure and corporate influence on science. In addition to conflicts-of-interest in science, her areas of expertise are ethics and health care quality, women's health, environmental justice and community-based land use decisions. She is a Faculty Affiliate at the Kennedy Institute of Ethics, Georgetown University and has served on the Committee on Ethics of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
John D. Spengler, Ph.D. is the Akira Yamaguchi Professor of Environmental Health and Human Habitation at Harvard University’s School of Public Health. From 1987 through 2003, he also served as the Director of the Environmental Science and Engineering Program in the Department of Environmental Health. Dr. Spengler has conducted research in the areas of personal monitoring, air pollution health effects, aerosol characterization, air pollution meteorology, and has published extensively in the open literature in each of these areas. More recently, Dr. Spengler has been involved in research that includes the integration of knowledge about indoor and outdoor air pollution as well as other risk factors into the design of housing, buildings and communities. Dr. Spengler offers his expertise to the Center on overall research design and scientific issues, and specifically provides expert advice to the Exposure Assessment Core.
Ezra Susser, MD, Dr.P.H. is Professor of Epidemiology and Professor of Psychiatry at Columbia University. He received his MD and DrPH with distinction from Columbia University. His medical training focused on psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology. Dr. Susser’s primary research has been on the epidemiology of psychotic disorders. He has studied the interrelationships between homelessness and psychotic disorders; compared psychotic disorders in low- and high-income countries; and related prenatal exposures to the risk of schizophrenia in adulthood. His current research focus is being funded through the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Fogarty Columbia-South Africa AIDS International Training and Research program (AITRP). The Fogarty Program is a cross-national collaboration between the MSPH Department of Epidemiology and South African researchers and has given rise to two major scientific programs that have helped transform biomedical research in South Africa. Dr. Susser is also currently an Honorary Visiting Professor at the TVW Telethon Institute for Child Health, University of Western Australia as well as at the Institute of Psychiatry in London, England. He has published on the development of epidemiology as a discipline: genetic epidemiology, psychiatric epidemiology, and epidemiology more generally.
Community Advisors
The Center’s Community Advisory Board (CAB) has been an invaluable resource to the Center’s work. The CAB is a coalition of nine longstanding environmental and housing advocacy and health service organizations in northern Manhattan and the South Bronx. The CAB has done much to inform the Center’s research design and context by representing community concerns, and has played an active role in educating local communities by distributing Healthy Home Healthy Child campaign materials and delivering workshops. Member organizations are described below:
West Harlem Environmental Action, Inc. (WE ACT) is a non-profit, community-based organization working to improve environmental quality and to secure environmental justice in predominately African-American and Latino communities. Since 1988, WE ACT has worked with citizen groups, youth, community residents, environmentalists, local/state/federal governments, and educational & medical institutions. Based in northern Manhattan, WE ACT advances its mission through research, public education, advocacy, mobilization, litigation, legislative affairs & sustainable economic development. WE ACT works to inform, educate, train and mobilize the predominately African-American and Latino residents of northern Manhattan on issues that impact their quality of life — air, water and indoor pollution, toxins, land use and open space, waterfront development and usage, sanitation, transportation, historic preservation, regulatory enforcement, and citizen participation in public policy-making.
Alianza Dominicana, Inc. is a non-profit community development organization that partners with youth, families and public and private institutions to revitalize economically distressed neighborhoods. Its mission is to assist children, youth and families break the cycle of poverty and fulfill their potential as members of the global community. Founded in 1987, Alianza Dominicana, Inc. develops model neighborhood-based initiatives using comprehensive and integrated services that attend to children, youth and families' multiple needs. Alianza is the most comprehensive Dominican human service and community development agency in the nation, and the largest and most relied upon community-based youth and family service agency in New York City. It is the leading authority on Dominican-Americans, the fastest growing Latino population in New York State. Dominicans are the second largest Latino community in New York State and the fourth largest in the country. Offering services in 11 sites, Alianza annually services more than 17,000 individuals in New York City.
For a Better Bronx is comprised of community members, schools and churches working to inform, educate and mobilize South Bronx residents around environmental justice issues. The coalition emerged in the early 1990s in response to the struggle to close down the Bronx-Lebanon Browning Ferris Industries Regional Medical Waste Incinerator. The coalition leads the community’s resistance to incineration as the sole means of handling medical waste, and works to implement alternative waste management strategies.
The Northern Manhattan Perinatal Partnership Inc. (NMPP) works to reduce infant mortality by enhancing the health and well-being of infants, children and their families living in the local neighborhoods of Central Harlem, East Harlem, West Harlem and Washington Heights. NMPP is a not-for-profit organization that works in partnership with a network of public and private agencies, community residents, health organizations and local businesses to provide health and wellness services to pregnant and parenting women, fathers and the extended family. NMPP provides access to comprehensive perinatal, postpartum and well-baby care by linking community residents with health care and social services, and advocates on residents’ behalf. NMPP also educates community residents in healthful habits and illness prevention techniques, including childhood immunization.
Harlem Dowling — West Side Center for Children & Families is a neighborhood-based organization headquartered in the Central Harlem community for over 30 years, with a 163-year history. Harlem Dowling administers programs that are responsive to the needs of children and families, particularly children of color, in their homes and communities. The organization offers families a range of comprehensive, accessible, innovative and culturally sensitive programs and services. Harlem Dowling specializes in services for foster and birth parents, life skills preparation for adolescents departing the foster care system, parent peer advocacy programs for birth parents, and HIV/AIDS education for community service providers and religious/spiritual groups.
The Heart of Harlem Program is designed to reduce morbidity and mortality rates in Central Harlem caused by heart disease. Harlem has one of the highest rates of cardiovascular diseases in the country. The Program focuses on changing unhealthy lifestyles that put Harlem residents at risk for stroke and heart attack. The goal of the work is to increase awareness on healthful nutrition, exercise, tobacco prevention and risks associated with hypertension. The Heart of Harlem Program also administers the Community-Based Smoking Cessation Program — a facilitator-lead cessation program that assists adult smokers with quitting, through peer support and positive reinforcement strategies, combined with the use of nicotine replacement therapy. Much of the program’s effectiveness hinges on educating the smoker on the health risks of smoking and successfully modifying behaviors that increase the opportunity and desirability of smoking.
Northern Manhattan Improvement Corporation — For over twenty years, the Northern Manhattan Improvement Corporation (NMIC) has provided valuable services to the residents of northern Manhattan to minimize evictions and maximize improvements to local housing stock. NMIC also provides employment and social services that give residents needed tools for attaining economic independence and stabilizing their home lives. NMIC has worked with more than 300 local tenant groups since 1979, giving residents a greater voice in the decisions that affect their lives. The Community Organizing Department works with residents who want to improve conditions and attract resources to meet the community’s needs.
Nos Quedamos/We Stay is a committed coalition of residents and business persons who are resolved to remain a part of the Melrose Commons community (35 contiguous blocks in the heart of the South Bronx) and become equal partners with the City of New York in their community’s redevelopment.” Nos Quedamos is intricately involved in the urban renewal process by addressing a myriad of issues, including socio-economic and environmental conditions in the South Bronx area. Their goal is to ultimately develop an economically productive, sustainable community and a healthy, livable environment.
St. Mary’s Protestant Episcopal Church — Founded in 1823, St. Mary’s Episcopal Church has served Harlem and its surrounding communities longer than any other religious institution. Over the years, St. Mary’s has become an invaluable part of the community, offering a variety of outreach services to the people of Harlem, specifically the homeless and those with HIV. Under the leadership of Reverend Earl Koopercamp, St. Mary’s founded the St. Mary’s Episcopal Center, a skilled nursing facility for people with AIDS. In collaboration with the Center for Urban Community Services, St. Mary’s also helped open the West Harlem Drop-in Center, which provides supportive services, such as food, clothing, healthcare, and temporary housing, to homeless people suffering from mental illness. St. Mary’s offers food drives, soup kitchens, and other outreach services throughout the year.
Staff
Asthma Research Staff
- Research Workers
- Alina Johnson
- Lin Lin
- Scott Weiner
- Kathleen Moors
- Chris Espino
- Huaijie Zhu
- Adnan Divjan
- Maria Rosa
- Project Coordinators
- Rafael Narvaez, Project Coordinator, Traffic Associated Air Pollution Asthma Study
- Cynthia Lendor, Project Coordinator, PAH Metabolite Study
- Molini Patel PhD, Postdoctoral Research Scientist, DISCOVER Initiative
- To contact the Asthma Research Staff, please call (212) 342-1671.
Cancer Research Staff
- Claudia Cujar Molina, Project Coordinator
- Gloria Eroglue
- Brenda Fiqueroa
- Chanthel Fiqueroa
- Denisa Miliku
- Ida Hui Suen
- Aisha Siebert
- Sara Wechter
- Karla Soriano
Research Workers
- Franchesca Arias
- Diurka Diaz
- Beatriz Plaza
- Andria Reyes
- Marilyn Reyes
- To contact the research workers, please call (646) 459-9600.
Research Worker Assistant Staff
- Gladys Badia
- Rodney Martinez
- Cosette Olivo
Project Coordinators
- Susan Edwards, Project Coordinator, Polish Study
- Angela Georgopoulos, Program Coordinator, DISCOVER Initiative
- Susan Illman, Program Coordinator, Development & Community Education
- Matthew Kurzon, Statistician, World Trade Center Pregnancy Study
- Sonali Rajan, Program Coordinator, Community Outreach and Translation Core
- Wei Jia Wang, Project Coordinator, World Trade Center Pregnancy Study
Administrative Staff
- Lorraine Ramos, Administrative Coordinator
- Eric Evans
Data Management
- Cora De Leon, LCSW, MPH, Assistant Lab Data Manager
- Jasmine Senaveratna, Data Entry
Statistical Staff
- ChiaJung Lin
- Zhigang Li
Laboratory Staff
- Fred Hua
- Xin He Jin
- Degang Zhu
- Andrew Hua
- Lirong Qu
- Jie Yu
Technicians
- Darrell Holmes, Field Technician
- Li Hua, Computer Technician
Financial Staff
- Annie Tse, Financial Coordinator
- Idrija Ibrahimagic
- Grace Ku
- May Yung
- To contact the CCCEH staff members, please call (212) 304-7280.