GIS-H Oversight Committee Members
Geographic Information System-H (GIS)
February 2000
The GIS-H for the Long Island Breast Cancer Study Project (LIBCSP) has an Oversight Committee of expert scientists and community breast cancer advocates. This committee is chaired by Gerard Rushton, Ph.D., Professor of Geography, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa. The LIBCSP is a Congressionally mandated study of the contribution of various environmental and occupational factors to the etiology of breast cancer. The committee members will meet twice annually and teleconference twice additionally annually, or on an as needed basis.
The members are:
Gerry Akland, M.S., is Principal Scientist for Exposure Research, Research Triangle Institute, Research Triangle Park, N.C. He is an expert in environmental exposure assessment. His research projects involve characterizing total human exposure from multiple pathways, including the measurement and risk assessment associated with pathways and mechanisms of exposure to environmental pollutants. He is retired from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), where he was a Senior Scientist for Exposure Research.
Larry Alber is the manager of the New York State (NYS) Department of Environmental Conservation Geographic Information System (GIS). He is a charter member of the NYS GIS Statewide Coordinating Body and is responsible for the practical implementation of GIS services, and for providing spatial data access to the professional staff at that agency. He has over 10 years experience in GIS with information processing systems.
Barbara J. Balaban, A.C.S.W.* is a long-time breast cancer advocate. She is a founding board member of both the National Breast Cancer Coalition and 1 in 9 the Long Island Breast Cancer Action Coalition, and served for nine years as Director of the Adelphi New York Statewide Breast Cancer Hotline & Support Program. She recently served as Coordinator of the Long Island Breast Cancer Network and is presently a board member of the West Islip Breast Cancer Coalition. A retired social worker, she is co-author of The Breast Cancer Handbook - Taking Control After You've Found a Lump. She also is a member of the External Advisory Committee for the centerpiece study of the LIBCSP, a population-based case-control study on breast cancer among women on Long Island.
Frederick R. Broome is the Chief of the Geospatial Research and Standards Staff, Geography Division, U.S. Bureau of the Census, and Lecturer on GIS at the University of Maryland, College Park, Md. He is an expert in geographical data capture, manipulation, and portrayal. He also is Chair of the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) Subcommittee on Cultural and Demographic Data. His recent work includes being a U.S. representative to the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) Technical Committee 211, which is developing standards for measuring and reporting the quality of geographic data. At the Census Bureau, he supervises the research work of a staff of geographers and cartographers into new and/or improved ways to collect and process geographically related data.
Bill Henriques, Ph.D., is Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Coordinator at the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), Atlanta, Ga. Earlier, he was with the Division of Toxicology, which is responsible for the evaluation of selected chemicals for ATSDR's Toxicological Profile development. He assisted in the development of ATSDR's Priority List of Hazardous Substances, and was an active participant in the ATSDR HazDat database development efforts. He is enthusiastic about GIS data sharing initiatives across federal and state agencies, universities, and the private sector.
Jeffrey P. Kahn, Ph.D., M.P.H., is Director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minn., and Associate Professor in the University of Minnesota Medical School, School of Public Health, and Department of Philosophy. In 1994 to 1995, he served as Associate Director of the White House Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments. His research interests include the ethics of research on human subjects, ethics and genetics, and ethics and public health policy. Dr. Kahn's most recent book is entitled Beyond Consent: Seeking Justice in Research, published by Oxford University Press.
Martin Kulldorff, Ph.D., is Associate Professor and Director of the Division of Biostatistics, University of Connecticut School of Medicine, Farmington, CT. He is an expert in spatial statistics, with a special emphasis on statistical methods for geographical disease surveillance. His recent work includes the development and applications of a spatial and space-time scan statistic, and the creation of an accompanying software called SaTScan.
Sarah J. Meyland, M.S., J.D.* is an environmental professional with over 20 years experience with water quality management, pollution prevention and remediation, policy development, environmental law, public health protection, and advanced technology. She is Executive Director of the Citizens Campaign for the Environment. She also is Associate Professor in Environmental Technology at New York Institute of Technology, where she teaches GIS technology. She has served as Director of Watershed Protection for the Suffolk County Water Authority, where she established a GIS program for water and land management, and is the former Executive Director of the New York Legislative Commission on Water Resource Needs of Long Island.
Karen Joy Miller* is founder and president of the Huntington Breast Cancer Coalition. She is a founding member of 1 in 9 the Long Island Breast Cancer Action Coalition, a charter member of the Long Island Breast Cancer Network, and founding member of the New York State Breast Cancer Network. Ms. Miller recently was appointed Deputy Director of Human Service for the Town of Huntington. She also is a member of the ad hoc Advisory Committee to the LIBCSP.
Peggy Reynolds, Ph.D., is a cancer epidemiologist and Chief of the Environmental Epidemiology and Geographic Information Section, California Department of Health Services, Oakland, Calif. She is currently studying factors that may be responsible for regional differences in breast cancer incidence rates within California. This project, and a similar project designed to look at childhood cancer, includes use of a GIS and grouped data sources to evaluate the potential influences of sociodemographic factors, environmental agents, and established risk factors. She has conducted a number of studies of social and environmental risk factors for breast cancer, including current collaborations on a large scale cohort study of breast cancer risk factors in California Teachers and a small series of studies examining organochlorine body burden levels in women with and without breast cancer.
Martha M. Rogers, J.D.* is a co-founder of the South Fork Breast Health Coalition of eastern Long Island. She is coordinator for the South Fork GIS Breast Cancer Project. Ms. Rogers also is an attorney currently serving her second term as a Councilwoman for the Town of Southampton.
Gerard Rushton, Ph.D., is Professor of Geography, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa. He is an expert in economic/social geography and medical geography. He is currently developing and incorporating insights from location theory into spatial decision support systems (SDSS). His recent work includes developing a CD-ROM and Web site dedicated to "Improving Public Health through Geographic Information Systems" and several research projects on the spatial analysis of disease.
Linda Williams Pickle, Ph.D., is Senior Mathematical Statistician in the Statistical Research and Applications Branch, Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences (DCCPS), National Cancer Institute (NCI), Bethesda, Md. She specializes in the statistical modeling of geographic data, GIS for health data, and map design. She is the author of three mortality atlases and numerous articles exploring the causes of geographic clustering of high disease rates.
Catherine Schairer, Ph.D., is an Investigator in the Environmental Epidemiology Branch, Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics (DCEG), National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, Md. Her research focuses on the hormonal etiology of breast and other cancers. Her recent work has focused on the relationship between menopausal hormone replacement therapy and breast cancer incidence and survival.
Thomas O. Talbot, M.S.P.H., is Chief of the Geographic Research and Analysis Section at the Center for Environmental Health, New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH), Troy, NY He has been instrumental in incorporating geographic analyses techniques into environmental health studies conducted at the NYSDOH. He is responsible for developing the Center for Environmental Health's GIS, which has been used in a number of studies and investigations including studies of breast cancer on Long Island. Current research activities within his section include developing applications for mapping environmental risk factors and adverse health outcomes in New York State.
Mary H. Ward, M.S., Ph.D., is an environmental epidemiologist and Investigator in the Occupational Epidemiology Branch, Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics (DCEG), National Cancer Institute (NCI), Rockville, Md. Dr. Ward's research has focused on environmental and occupational epidemiology, with special emphasis on pesticides and nitrates, and the etiology of non-Hodgkin s lymphoma and gastric cancer. She has been responsible for developmental work in the use of GISs for exposure assessment of pesticides and nitrates in drinking water.
Victoria White* is a breast cancer educator who is a member of the New York State Women's Advisory Council, Vice President of the African American Health Education and Development Foundation, and Chairperson of the Women of Color Coalition. She is also a member of the ad hoc Advisory Committee to the LIBCSP.
* community representative
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