Speakers

Bryan Brooks
Bryan W. Brooks is Distinguished Professor in the Department of Environmental Science and Institute of Biomedical Studies, and Director of Environmental Health Science at Baylor University, Waco, Texas, USA. He received a B.S. and M.S. in biological sciences from the University of Mississippi (Oxford, Mississippi, USA) and a Ph.D. in environmental science from the University of North Texas (Denton, Texas, USA). His research often focuses on urban waters, engaging topics ranging from water quality and reuse, environmental, aquatic and comparative toxicology and pharmacology, and sustainable molecular design, to developing approaches to define risks of contaminants of historical and emerging concern, and the ecology and toxicology of harmful algae blooms. Dr. Brooks’ research, which is actively occurring on six continents, has been supported by national and international government agencies, state and local governments, industry, and foundations. The author of over 150 refereed journal articles, editorials and book chapters, Dr. Brooks is Editor-in-Chief of Environmental Management (Springer Nature), is an Associate Editor of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (Wiley SETAC) and Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management (Wiley SETAC), and serves on the editorial boards of Science of the Total Environment (Elsevier) and Toxicon (Elsevier).  Dr. Brooks received 2009 and 2013 Scientific and Technological Achievement Awards from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and is a past fellow of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s Environmental Public Health Leadership Institute. He recently served as the Fulbright Visiting Research Chair in Water and the Environment at the University of Lethbridge in Alberta, Canada, and as a Visiting Erskine Fellow at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand

 

Rick Van Dam
Dr Rick van Dam is a Senior Principal Research Scientist with the Australian Government, Director of the Environmental Research Institute of the Supervising Scientist, and Adjunct Associate Professor with RMIT University. He has been involved in ecotoxicology, ecological risk assessment and water quality related research for over 25 years. His research has focused on a number of key areas, including: metal bioavailability and toxicity; development of toxicity test methods; direct toxicity assessment; water quality benchmark derivation; and ecological risk assessment of chemical, biological and physical threats to tropical aquatic ecosystems. Dr van Dam has also been centrally involved in the development and revision of the Australian and New Zealand Guidelines for Fresh and Marine Water Quality since 1996. He has produced and published national and international guidance on water quality related issues, with a focus on the derivation of water quality benchmarks.

 

Glenn Suter
Glenn Suter is Science Advisor in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s National Center for Environmental Assessment and Chairman of the Risk Assessment Forum’s Ecological Oversight Committee. He has produced more than 200 publications including 3 authored books and 4 edited books over his 37 year career. He was one of the founders of both ecological risk assessment and ecological causal assessment. He pioneered the development of a formal process for weight of evidence in ecological assessments. He also developed a test protocol for soil processes that was adopted by the U.S. EPA and OECD. He has received the Society for Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry’s Founder’s Award and the Association for Environmental Health and Science’s Career Achievement Award, and he is an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is Associate Editor for Ecological Risk of Human and Ecological Risk Assessment, and a Senior Editor of Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management. He is currently working on the application of uncertainty analysis and weight of evidence to water quality criteria.

 

Mickey Taylor
Dr. Mickey Taylor received his PhD in Environmental Toxicology from Clemson University in 1998 and participated in the 1st Vietnam United States Workshop on Ecosystem Assessment Management and Restoration in Hanoi, Vietnam during March 2004. Dr. Taylor is currently working for the University of Georgia and serves as the coordinator for the Pesticide Safety Education Program. His experience includes 20 years as head grower and pesticide applicator for his 55,000 sq. ft. greenhouse operation, 8 years of research exploring the efficacy of constructed wetlands for remediating nutrients and pesticides from commercial nursery operations, 5 years as the Director of Research for a biotechnology startup company commercializing a biopesticide booster product, 3 years as a Senior Agricultural Advisor in USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service’s Civilian Response Corps, and 3.5 years as the Coordinator of the University of Georgia’s Pesticide Safety Education Program. Dr. Taylor served as lead editor of contributed chapters from authors around the globe that described the distribution, fate, and effects of pesticide residues in coastal tropical ecosystems. Pesticide Residues in Coastal Tropical Ecosystems: Distribution, fate, and effects was published in January 2003 by Taylor & Francis Inc, London, UK. His current work includes improving and modernizing pesticide safety education in Georgia for the roughly 20,000 commercial and private pesticide applicators applying pesticides in the state.