Core Faculty

Faculty from within the Departments of Health Services and Environmental Health make up the core faculty of the training program. These faculty bring a diverse set of backgrounds, disciplines, and research experience to the program. Biographical information for the core program faculty is provided below.

• Thomas Wickizer, PhD, MPH: Dr Wickizer, Rohm and Haas Professor of Public Health Sciences and Professor of Health Services, is the director of the Occupational Health Services Research Training Program. Dr. Wickizer’s training is in health economics and health policy. He has published extensively on a variety of health services subjects, including managed care, effects of utilization management on patterns of medical care, community health promotion, and injury risk among selected population groups. Dr. Wickizer served as P.I. on three prior occupational health studies, including the Washington State Workers’ Compensation Managed Care Pilot evaluation, and currently is P.I. on a major evaluation of a drug-free workplace program. His current occupational health services research includes studies of workers’ compensation utilization management programs, long-term (two-year) follow up of injured workers treated through managed care, and development of systems to track patient satisfaction and health outcomes among injured and ill workers.
• Gary Franklin, MD, MPH: Dr. Franklin is a nationally recognized expert in occupational epidemiology and health outcomes assessment. Under his direction and leadership, the Occupational Epidemiology and Health Outcomes Program has become widely known for its occupational health research. Dr. Franklin also serves as Medical Director of the Department of Labor and Industries, the state agency that operates the workers’ compensation system in Washington State. Dr. Franklin has published widely on a range of topics in the field of occupational health, including health services research studies. He has a major interest in disability prevention, and currently has a grant proposal under review at NIH for a major study to analyze disability risk among injured workers.
• Michael Morgan, ScD: Dr Morgan, Professor, served as Deputy Director of the ERC for several years and as Director for two years. Dr. Morgan is widely known for his research and teaching in the field of industrial hygiene. He holds adjunct appointments in the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Washington and in the Environmental Sciences program at Washington State University. Under his leadership, the ERC has established linkages with key organizations and agencies in the Northwest Region that may serve as settings for field-based occupational health services research conducted by the program’s trainees.
• William Daniell, MD, MPH: Dr Daniell, Associate Professor, is an occupational health physician and epidemiologist, with board certification in internal medicine and in occupational and environmental medicine. His major research interests include: occupational medicine and epidemiology, noise-induced hearing loss, use of workers' compensation data for guiding interventions, and neuropsychological sequelae of solvent/pesticide exposure. Dr Daniel participates in the Occupational Medicine Program and teaches an environmental health survey course. He is currently undertaking research on carpal tunnel syndrome through the Occupational Epidemiology and Health Outcomes Program.
• Diane Martin, PhD: Dr Martin is a Professor and the Director of the Health Services PHD program. Dr. Martin has formal training in epidemiology and has published extensively on a wide variety of health services research topics, especially health outcomes assessment. She is well known for her expertise in survey research and data analysis. In addition to directing the doctoral program, Dr. Martin oversees the Health Services post-doctoral fellowship program.
• Carolyn Watts, PhD: Dr Watts, Professor and Director of the Health Policy Analysis Program, has training in health economics and is a nationally recognized expert in the field of health policy. Dr. Watts has directed large-scale studies in the areas of health care risk adjustment and delivery of managed care services. She was also an investigator on the evaluation of the Washington State Workers’ Compensation Managed Care Pilot.
• Branko Kopjar, MD, PhD: Dr Kopjar, Associate Professor, has conducted extensive epidemiological research on injuries and is considered a leading authority in this area. Dr. Kopjar is the former Director of the Institute for Public Health in Oslo, Norway. He developed a highly successful injury registration system for the Norwegian Ministry of Health, and conducted a series of epidemiological studies, in collaboration with Dr. Wickizer, of injuries in different population groups. Dr. Kopjar combines his expertise in advanced epidemiological methods and data analysis with an in-depth understanding of public health and prevention issues.
• Mary Salazar, EdD: Dr. Salazar, Associate Professor in the School of Nursing and Director of the Occupational Health Nursing Program, specializes in worksite health education and health promotion of injured workers. She is currently involved in a NIOSH-funded health surveillance research project at the Hanford Atomic Energy site in Eastern Washington, along with a large-scale risk assessment project. Her past research includes a major evaluation of the Washington State workers’ compensation case management program.
• Matthew Keifer, MD, MPH: Dr Keifer, Associate Professor, is a graduate of the University of Washington's Occupational and Environmental Medicine Residency/Fellowship Program. He joined the faculty after serving as Project Epidemiologist for CARE in Nicaragua, where he participated in health surveillance and development activities related to pesticide exposures and health effects. His activities pertain to studies of pesticide health effects on humans, occupational health issues in agriculture and occupational health in developing countries.
• Joel Kaufman, MD, MPH: Dr Kaufman, Associate Professor, is a physician-epidemiologist, board-certified in internal medicine and occupational medicine, with a specialty in environmental and occupational medicine. His current research activities fall into three areas: environmental and occupational factors in cardiovascular disease; occupational and environmental asthma; and surveillance and prevention of occupational illnesses and injuries. His research program fosters collaboration between epidemiology, exposure assessment, and occupational/environmental medicine.
• Noah Seixas, PhD: Dr Seixas, Professor, serves as the Director of the Northwest Center for Occupational Health and Safety at the University of Washington. Dr. Seixas is a certified industrial hygienist with an emphasis on the quantification of exposure for occupational epidemiology. In addition to teaching industrial hygiene courses and maintaining an active research program he is the Rohm & Haas Professor of Environmental Health, developing interests in the social and behavioral aspects of occupational health and safety. Dr. Seixas' research interests include: exposure assessments in the context of retrospective, cross-sectional and prospective epidemiology studies; exploring statistical aspects of exposure and dose estimation; investigations in the mining, construction, waste handling, and primary and secondary metal industries; and evaluating the effectiveness of organizational interventions to improve safety and health performance.