School of Public Health - University of Washington - Spr/Sum 2009

At our annual Student Research Day, one second-year master's student from each graduate program was selected to present an oral summary of his or her thesis or project research. The remainder of the graduating master's students and selected doctoral students presented posters of their work. Thesis abstracts are available online. Faculty preceptors are listed in parentheses.

Sarah Armel

Mercury Exposure and Autism

Sarah Armel, MS, Toxicology (James Woods)

Recent findings showed the urine of children with autism to have increased concentrations of porphyrins, chemical compounds also found in larger concentrations in adults exposed to mercury. Prolonged mercury exposure may damage neurological and neurobehavioral systems. Armel compared porphyrin levels in same-aged children with and without autism. Her results showed that porphyrin concentrations are naturally high in young children and decline by as much as three-fold between ages 2-12. These preliminary findings are inconsistent with the theory linking autism to mercury exposure and suggest that careful age-matching is necessary in studies using porphyrins as biomarkers.

Hamilton Bennett

Concentrating Aquatic Viruses

Hamilton Bennett, MS, Environmental Health (Gwy-Am Shin)

Concentrating viruses from water is often a necessary first step toward determining their presence in the environment. Bennett's study evaluates a novel filter for recovering viruses from both deionized and marine water, using bacteriophage MS2, and human pathogens Adenovirus type 2 and Poliovirus type 1. Her research has found that not only are recovery efficiencies acceptable, but the filtration method offers a number of improvements over current EPA-recommended practices.

Timothy Carter

Chromium VI and Exposures

Timothy Carter, MS, Occupational and Environmental Exposure Sciences (Michael Morgan)

Chromium VI is a recognized carcinogen that damages the lung, kidney, and liver. Carter monitored occupational exposures to chromium VI among workers performing chrome electroplating and chromate spraypainting. His study investigated airborne particle size distribution and chromium uptake. He found that electroplaters had higher urinary chromium levels and were exposed to a significantly greater fraction of respirable size chromium VI particles than spray-painters.

Edwin Long

Diver Risk for "The Bends"

Edwin Long, MPH, Occupational & Environmental Medicine (Sverre Vedal)

Decompression sickness (DCS), or the "bends," affects divers when they ascend from the ocean bottom back to the surface. Gas bubbles, venous gas emboli (VGE), form in the blood and may result in pain and neurological problems. Long tested whether a diver's ascent from colder to warmer ambient temperatures during decompression may decrease the risk of DCS. He measured VGE in 67 divers after different time intervals under water and their thermal conditions. If a strong association can be shown between diver thermal status and VGE, then the use of VGE as a predictor of DCS is warranted, potentially changing the way decompression tables are developed.

Erin Stamper

Distance from Roadways

Erin Stamper, MPH, Environmental and Occupational Health (Joel Kaufman)

Living near roadways has been linked to cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Correctly identifying residents' exposure with minimal error is critical, given the variation of air pollution around different types of roads. Past research has shown that "street geocoding," commonly used in large-scale studies, can overestimate the number of individuals who live near major roadways. In this investigation, Stamper compared the proximity of study participants to roadways in California, Minnesota, and New York, using a variety of measurement tools and methods. She found variation existed within 100 meters from the roadways, but also that any inaccuracies can be explained by factoring in the types of roads where participants reside.

STUDENT POSTER SESSION

Environmental Health, MS
Laurel Jennings (John Kissel)
Assessing toxicant movement in the Puget Sound using a multi-compartmental box model
Christina Rohlik (J. Scott Meschke)
Characterization of bioaerosols and bacterial surface contamination at a large Washington dairy operation

Occupational & Environmental Exposure Sciences, MS
Jacob Braden (Michael Yost)
Modeling the fate of diesel particulate matter emissions from a selected marine vessel using CALPUFF View Version 2.3
Eric Coker (Yost)
Measurement of gasses by UV-DOAS for a reference spectral library
Ling Cui (Peter Johnson)
Physical exposure difference between children and adults when using different computer input devices
Lauren Dunbar (Meschke)
Endotoxin electrochemical detection method for use in bioaerosol personal sampling device
Joseph Nelson (Noah Seixas)
Characterization and prediction of shipyard welders' exposure
Phayong Thepaksorn (Yost)
Measurements of ambient NO using an ultraviolet differential optical absorption spectroscopy (UV-DOAS)
Jackelin Tran (Morgan)
Effects of glove material and thickness on permeation by solvents commonly used in the auto painting industry

Toxicology, MS
Candice Suping Huang (Lucio Costa)
Relative cytotoxicity of five polybrominated diphenyl ether congeners (BDE-47, -99, -100, -153, and -209) in mice cerebellar granule neurons

Environmental and Occupational Health, MPH
Randy Treadwell (Matthew Keifer)
Introduction of a portable cholinesterase monitoring kit into clinical practice: A normalization process model approach

Occupational and Environmental Medicine, MPH
William Callis (William Daniell)
The relationship between self-reported morale and post-deployment mental illness: A retrospective cohort time to event analysis
Kenneth Kuhn (Jordan Firestone)
Evaluation of the health care utilization and exposure to Jet-Propellant-8 (JP-8) in United States Army soldiers returning from deployment to Operations Iraqi and Enduring Freedom

Toxicology, PhD
Kellie Fay (Terrance Kavanagh)
Comparative analysis of short-term vs. long-term culture of primary mouse hepatocytes for modeling in vivo responses to acetaminophen Environmental & Occupational

Hygiene, PhD
Diana Ceballos (Yost)
Isocyanate surface sampling in the Puget Sound collision repair industry and objective color scale for the SWYPE surface sampling technique

Top