Scientific Advisory Panel

FIFRA Scientific Advisory Panel
Open Meeting, February 23-25, 2009

Panel List for the FIFRA SAP to consider and review issues associated with

the data required to register Plant-Incorporated Protectants (PIP

Environmental Protection Agency Conference Center
Lobby Level, One Potomac Yard (South Bldg.),
2777 Crystal Dr., Arlington, VA 22202

FIFRA SAP Website: https://www.epa.gov/scipoly/sap/
Docket Number EPA-HQ-OPP-2008-0835
OPP Docket Telephone: 703-305-5805

FIFRA SAP Session Chair

Steven G. Heeringa, Ph.D.
Research Scientist & Director for Statistical Design
University of Michigan Institute for Social Research
Ann Arbor, MI

Designated Federal Official

Joseph E. Bailey
US Environmental Protection Agency
Office of Science Coordination & Policy
FIFRA Scientific Advisory Panel
EPA East Building, MC 7201M
1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20460
Tel: 202-564-8450, Fax: 202-564-8382, bailey.joseph@epa.gov

FIFRA Scientific Advisory Panel Members

Kirby C. Donnelly, Ph.D.
Professor and Head
Department of Environmental and Occupational Health
School of Rural Public Health
Texas A&M University System Health Science Center
College Station, TX

Carey N. Pope, Ph.D.
Professor, Head & Sitlington Chair of Toxicology
Department of Physiological Sciences
Oklahoma State University College of Veterinary Medicine
Stillwater, OK

Daniel Schlenk, Ph.D.
Professor of Aquatic Ecotoxicology & Environmental Toxicology
Department of Environmental Sciences
University of California, Riverside
Riverside, CA

FQPA Science Review Board Members

Werner Braun, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Senior Scientist, Sealy Center for Structural Biology
University of Texas Medical Branch
Galveston, Texas 

Dr. Braun received his academic and professional training at the ETH in Zurich, Switzerland. His research interests includes the development of novel computational tools for food safety regulations. He is a member of the Center for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases at UTMB, the Sealy Center for Vaccine Development, UTMB, and the Keck Center for Interdisciplinary Bioscience Training, Houston, TX.  His research group consists of about ten researchers in computational biology, including graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and one Associate Professor. Dr. Braun’s research work has been published in more than 100 scientific articles in high impact journals, such as Science, J. Molecular Biology, Bioinformatics, BMC Bioinformatics, Journal of Biological Chemistry, Proteins, PNAS, Current Medicinal Chemistry, Biochemistry, Nucleic Acid Research and Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology. His past and current research projects are funded by several federal agencies; the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Department of Energy (DOE), the National Institute of Health (NIH), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and from state-funds, such as the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. In recognition of the excellent scientific achievements in recent years, he was elected in 2007 nationally as an AAAS Fellow (American Association for the Advancement of Science), a distinction conferred annually upon selected AAAS members by their peers.

Johanne Brunet, Ph.D.                                                 
Research Ecologist - USDA-ARS
Vegetable Crops Research Unit
Assistant Professor
Department of Horticulture
University of Wisconsin  
Madison, Wisconsin 

Dr. Brunet has a Ph.D. from the Department of Ecology and Evolution at SUNY Stony Brook and has done postdoctoral work at the University of Chicago and Oregon State University. She was research professor at Oregon State University before joining the USDA-ARS in Madison in 2003. Dr. Brunet’s research examines both ecology and genetics and takes place in agricultural and natural settings. Dr. Brunet has expertise in field and laboratory work and has done both experimental and theoretical research. She has been a reviewer for over 20 different journals ranging from Crop Science and Agronomy to Evolution and Ecology. She has reviewed grants for both national and international granting agencies in addition to serving on a number of grant review panels. She has organized symposia at national meetings and has given numerous invited presentations. Dr. Brunet has done research and published in a variety of areas including sex allocation theory, plant mating system evolution, plant-pathogen interactions, pollination biology, and gene flow and impact of transgenes.

Kari E. Dunfield, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Applied Soil Ecology
University of Guelph
Guelph, Ontario
CANADA 

Dr. Dunfield holds a BSc in Microbiology from the University of Calgary (1995), a MSc in Plant Science (1999) and a PhD in Soil Science (2002) from the University of Saskatchewan.  She also completed post-doctoral research in soil ecology and biogeochemistry at the Darling Marine Centre at the University of Maine.   Her research uses established molecular biology techniques to characterize soil microbial communities, and microbially mediated soil processes.  Her research interest is in the impact of agricultural practices on the functioning and diversity of soil microbial communities.   Currently she is involved in several research projects that are attempting to assess communities of microorganisms associated with N and C cycling in soils, the impact of genetically modified organisms on soil ecosystems, the survival and transport of pathogens in agricultural soils and surface waters.  Kari has served 5 times as an expert reviewer for the Ecology and Evolution Panel of the Science Foundation of Ireland.  She serves as Co-Chair of the Education Committee for the Canadian Society for Microbiologists, and is a member of several international societies, including International Society for Microbial Ecologists, Canadian Society of Soil Scientists, American Society of Microbiologists and Soil Science Society of America.  She currently teaches Environmental Soil Biology and Soil and Water Conservation at the undergraduate level, and supervises 3 PhD and 2 MSc candidates at the University of Guelph.

Brian A. Federici, Ph,D.
Professor of Entomology & Interdepartmental Graduate
   Programs in Genetics and Microbiology
University of California Riverside
Riverside, California 

Dr. Federici has a Ph.D. in Entomology from the University of Florida, Gainesville, and was a post-doctoral fellow at the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research before moving to the University of California, Riverside. He conducts research on the biology and use of insect pathogens, especially insecticidal bacteria and viruses, for the control of insect agricultural pests and vectors of human diseases.  He has been involved in research on insecticidal bacteria and viruses for more than 30 years, and over the past decade has focused much of his research on the basic biology of Bacillus thuringiensis, with particular emphasis of the molecular biology, genetics, and non-target effects of insecticidal proteins produced by this species. His research has been supported by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Science Foundation, and Department of Agriculture. From 1984-1996,  he was a consultant for many years for the World Health Organization and the NIH. Since 2000, Brian has served on 3 EPA Scientific Review Panels, and has lectured on his research in many countries, including Argentina, Australia, Brazil, China, France, India, Italy, Mexico, Spain, and most recently Tunisia. He serves as the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Invertebrate Pathology, and is a member of the editorial board of Applied and Environmental Microbiology.

Steven M. Gendel, Ph.D.                                                         
Risk Assessment Project Manager
Food & Drug Administration
Center for Food Safety & Applied Nutrition
College Park, Maryland 

Dr. Gendel received his B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Case Western Reserve University and his Ph.D. in Cell Biology from the University of California, Irvine.  He held postdoctoral positions at Harvard University and the University of Toronto before joining the faculty of the Department of Genetics at Iowa State University.  Since 1990 he has been with the FDA, initially at the National Center for Food Safety and Technology in Chicago as Chief of the Biotechnology Studies Branch, then with the Office of Science, and now with the CFSAN Risk Assessment Coordination Team.  Dr. Gendel has published extensively on the application of molecular techniques to food safety and has expertise in Food Safety Risk Analysis and Food Safety Informatics. 

Richard Hellmich, Ph.D.                                                           
Research Entomologist
USDA-ARS
Corn, Insects and Crop Genetics Research Unit
Iowa State University
Ames, Iowa 

Dr. Hellmich received his BA (1977) in Zoology from DePauw University, and MS (1980) and Ph.D. (1983) in Entomology from The Ohio State University.  He has been a Research Entomologist with the USDA–ARS, Corn Insects and Crop Genetics Research Laboratory in Ames, Iowa for fifteen years. The mission of this lab is to develop sustainable ways to manage insect pests of corn. His research focuses on European corn borer ecology and genetics, insect resistance management, and evaluation of non-target effects of transgenic maize. Previously, Dr. Hellmich also is a Collaborator and Assistant Professor with the Iowa State University Department of Entomology. Dr. Hellmich was co-recipient of a 2002 USDA Secretary’s Honor Award for leading a consortium of scientists that investigated Bt corn and monarch butterflies. He authored or co-authored five papers published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA related to this topic. Dr. Hellmich also is the Agricultural Research Service, Midwest Area, 2002 Scientist of the Year.

Robert J. Kremer, Ph.D.
Microbiologist
USDA-ARS
University of Missouri
Columbia, Missouri 

Bob Kremer earned a B.S. (1972) and M.S. (1975) in Agronomy from the University of Missouri, and his PhD (1981) in Soil Microbiology & Biochemistry from Mississippi State University USA. Significant portions of Dr. Kremer’s research program have focused on biological and ecological aspects of soil quality and impacts of genetically-modified crops on soil biology and plant-microorganism interactions. He also has expertise in rhizosphere-microorganism interactions (including rhizobial symbioses), biological control of weeds and phytopathogens with beneficial microorganisms and insects, and waterborne pathogen assessment. Experience gained in these areas has led to invitations to present the practical implications of this work at several national and international meetings. He has consulted or collaborated on numerous international projects based in Korea, Jamaica, Poland, Tunisia, Australia, and Brazil. He has advised or co-advised over 20 U.S. and international graduate students.  Dr. Kremer is a Fellow of the American Society of Agronomy (2003) and a Fellow of the Weed Science Society of America (2007). He has served as Associate Editor of Weed Science and Weed Technology, and currently serves on the Editorial Board of Communications in Soil Science & Plant Analysis. Dr. Kremer is serving as Guest Editor for European Journal of Agronomy on an upcoming special issue on glyphosate interactions with plant nutrition and diseases. He teaches courses in soil microbiology and weed science and has co-authored a textbook on weed management. He has authored or co-authored 95 refereed journal articles and 20 book chapters.

C. Randal Linder, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Section of Integrative Biology
Center for Computational Biology and
Bioinformatics
University of Texas at Austin
Austin, Texas 

Dr. Linder has a Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Brown University. His primary areas of research are adaptive evolution of seed characteristics in flowering plants and development of methods for inference of phylogenetic relationships as part of the Assembling the Tree of Life initiative at the National Science Foundation. In addition to these areas, he has worked on and has interest in the potential ecological and evolutionary consequences of using transgenic organisms, particularly crops, in the environment. He has studied the importance of gene flow and the consequences of hybridization between crops and their wild and weedy relatives. He has served on review panels for the National Science Foundation, USDA, and several computer science and bioinformatics conferences as well as running workshops and symposia for NSF, the Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing and the Society for the Study of Evolution. He currently runs an active laboratory advising both biological and computer science Ph.D. students.

Kristin L. Mercer, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
The Ohio State University
Department of Horticulture & Crop Science
Columbus, Ohio 

Dr. Mercer holds a Ph.D. in Applied Plant Sciences from the University of Minnesota.   She contributes to risk assessment for transgenic crops by elucidating the consequences of crop-wild gene flow in populations of wild and weedy relatives.  Since obtaining her PhD at University of Minnesota, Kristin’s publications in this area have focused on sunflower, which is native to the US.  She has explored the ways that genetic diversity and environmental variation can affect the outcomes of crop-wild gene flow.  She also studies the ways that on-going evolution shape geographical patterns of crop diversity.  She works with maize landraces (traditional varieties) native to southern Mexico to understand how natural and farmer-mediated processes alter diversity.  Of particular interest is how these processes could impact (a) the movement of transgenes among fields and (b) crop responses to climate change.  Kristin teaches classes on design of experiments and agroecology at the graduate level.  Due to her broad expertise, she has reviewed manuscripts for 13 journals and one book.  Since 2006, Kristin has served as a panelist for the USDA Biotechnology Risk Assessment Grant program and reviewed proposals for the USAID Biotechnology and Biodiversity Initiative.  She has also served as an ad hoc reviewer on UDSA and NSF grant panels.