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CHARMED Executive Committee

As chair of the Department of Health and Environmental Engineering and the former chair of Environmental Health Sciences at Bloomberg School of Public Health (2012-2016), she encourages cross-divisional and cross-disciplinary inquiry, bringing together financial and intellectual resources to support collaborative research between the engineering and public health sectors. She served as associate dean for research at the University of Cincinnati School of Medicine. She was also a tenured professor of pediatrics and director of the Division of Immunobiology there from 2000 to 2012.

Marsha Wills-Karp, PhD

Center Director

Chair, Department of Environmental Health and Engineering
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

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Dr. Sacoby Wilson is a Professor with the Maryland Institute for Applied Environmental Health and Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics in the University of Maryland, College Park School of Public Health where directs the Center for Community Engagement, Environmental Justice and Health (CEEJH). Dr. Wilson has over 20 years of experience as environmental health scientist in the areas of exposure science, environmental justice, environmental health disparities, community-based participatory research, water quality analysis, air pollution studies, built environment, industrial animal production, climate change, community resiliency, and sustainability. He works primarily in partnership with community-based organizations to study and address environmental justice and health issues and translate research to action.

Sacoby Wilson, PhD

CEC Co-Director

Director, Community Engagement, Environmental Justice, and Health
Professor, Maryland Institute for Applied Environmental Health
University of Maryland School of Public Health

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Shashawnda Campbell is a community leader and activist for Environmental Justice. As a student at Ben Franklin High School in South Baltimore, Shashawnda co-founded “Free Your Voice”, a student led group that worked for 5 years to shut down the largest incinerator proposal in US history set to be built less than a mile away from their school. Shashawnda has since helped develop the South Baltimore Community Land Trust to create community-led development without displacement, permanently affordable housing, and zero waste infrastructure. A lifelong Baltimore resident, Shashawnda is committed to the implementation of Baltimore’s Fair Development Plan for Zero Waste to help lead her City through a just transition that respects our lives and our planet.

Shashawnda Campbell

CEC Co-Director

Environmental Justice Coordinator, South Baltimore Community Land Trust

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Dr Koehler' goals are to improve exposure assessment methods to inform occupational and public health policy. Her research goals involve the use of direct-reading instrumentation to improve spatiotemporal exposure assessment. Direct-reading (i.e. “real-time”) monitors can rapidly assess exposures to various hazards. Her Career Development Award involves coupling estimated exposures with a known location to identify occupational sources of these hazards. Contour plots of the hazard concentration over space, known as concentration maps, have recently been used to assess the spatial variability of hazards. Concentration maps have the potential to be powerful because they are easily comprehensible for workers, managers, and occupational/environmental health scientists to locate areas of concern. In the ambient environment, she is interested in spatiotemporal exposure assessment by pairing direct-reading instruments with a GPS unit to apportion exposures to different microenvironments. She is an investigator on a study in which we are using a Geographic Information System (GIS) to determine whether commuters can reduce their exposure to traffic-related air pollution by changing their route or mode of transportation (driving vs. bicycling). Additionally, she is the P.I. of an award to investigate the indoor exposures for this cohort. While she believes there is great potential for direct-reading instruments to aid in the identification of exposure hazards, it can be dangerous to apply such a methodology without understanding the uncertainties associated with this new form of exposure assessment. Her continuing research interests include investigating the use of traditional spatial statistical methods like Kriging and more novel methods employing Bayesian statistics. She is also interested in developing novel aerosol samplers to improve the relationship between exposures and health effects.

Kirsten Koehler, PhD

ECMC Director

Associate Professor, Department of Environmental Health and Engineering
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

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Ana Rule, PhD ’05, MHS '98, focuses on the development and evaluation of novel sampling and analysis strategies for assessments of exposure to biological aerosols, e-cigarette aerosols, and particulate matter.

Ana Rule, PhD

Community TRG Co-Lead

Assistant Professor, Department of Environmental Health and Engineering
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

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Dr. Gurumurthy “Ram” Ramachandran joined as Professor in the Department of Environmental Health and Engineering in the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University in 2016. He is the Director of the Johns Hopkins Education and Research Center for Occupational Safety and Health funded by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). Starting in July 2019, he has also been appointed as Deputy Chair for the Department of Environmental Health and Engineering. He has conducted research in various areas relating to human exposure assessment in occupational, residential, and outdoor settings. His research has included the development of occupational exposure assessment strategies for airborne contaminants. He has conducted pioneering studies in occupational hygiene decision-making that synthesizes mathematical exposure models, monitoring data, and probabilistic expert judgment within a Bayesian framework. He has led or participated in multi-disciplinary teams engaged in numerous community and occupational exposure assessment and epidemiological studies in the US, India, and Canada, and Bangladesh. He collaborates with colleagues in International Health on epidemiological studies in Bangladesh relating to cookstove emissions, with toxicology colleagues on designing exposure chambers for animal studies, and colleagues in the SOM on lung dosimetry modeling. He is co-leading the Exposome Collaborative of the Johns Hopkins University.

Gurumurthy Ramachandran, PhD

Center Co-Director

Professor, Department of Environmental Health and Engineering
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

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Greg Sawtell is the Zero Waste Just Transition Director with the South Baltimore Community Land Trust. He has worked on environmental justice campaigns since 2012 in Baltimore beginning with the successful effort to stop the nation’s largest trash incineration from being built less than a mile from schools in South Baltimore. Greg coordinated the development of Baltimore’s community led Zero Waste Plan and is currently focused on implementation in coalition with labor, community, and government. Greg is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design and the University of Maryland School of Social Work.

Gregory Sawtell

CEC Co-Director

Zero Waste Just Transition Director, South Baltimore Community Land Trust
President, Community of Curtis Bay Association

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Dr. Putcha is a pulmonary and critical care physician. She is an expert in the diagnosis and treatment of lung disease (specifically obstructive lung diseases such as COPD and asthma), and in the care of critically ill patients in the Medical ICU. She is a member of the Lung Research Conference Planning Committee and provides teaching to medical students and residents at Johns Hopkins. Dr. Putcha is interested in the role of comorbidities on clinical outcomes in the population with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). She has studied the impact of specific comorbidities such as asthma, allergic disease, and anemia, on COPD outcomes, but has also studied the general burden of comorbidities with regards to COPD outcomes. She has also studied the impacts of the home environment, including secondhand smoke exposure as well as home allergen exposures with outcomes in COPD. Currently, Dr. Putcha is examining the effect of allergen sensitization and exposure on exacerbations and symptoms in COPD. Her long-term goal is to understand intrinsic and environmental drivers of heightened symptoms and exacerbations in COPD.

Nirupama Putcha, MD, MHS

IHSFC Co-Director

Associate Professor, Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

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Thomas Hartung, MD, PhD, steers the revolution in toxicology to move away from 50+ year-old animal tests to organoid cultures and the use of artificial intelligence. His research interests are: toxicology; pharmacology; infectious disease; alternatives to animal testing; microphysiological systems; cell culture; validation; pyrogen testing; big data; artificial intelligence; metabolomics; developmental neurotoxicity; mini-brains

Thomas Hartung, MD

Pilot Project Program Director

Professor, Department of Environmental Health and Engineering
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

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Christopher Heaney, PhD, MS, and his team, developed a saliva-based test that accurately detects the presence of antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 from small samples of saliva. His research interests are: Environmental epidemiology; Occupational and environmental health; Infectious diseases; Water and health; Global climate change; Community-based participatory research

Christopher D. Heaney, PhD

CEC Co-Director

Associate Professor, Department of Environmental Health and Engineering
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

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Walkiria Pool’s professional career includes over 15 years in community development and the housing service industry with a focus on affordable housing and asset development. She earned her MA Community Economic Development from Southern New Hampshire University and a graduate certificate in Women and Politics and Public Policy from the University of Massachusetts in Boston. As an undergraduate Ms. Pool earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Massachusetts in Boston, majoring in Psychology and Sociology. Ms. Pool was responsible for developing and implementing the Project “Más a ti” for the National Council of La Raza, the first community-based financial institution for low-income families in the nation. Ms. Pool also served as Youth Program Director in the family Asset Building division of Lawrence Community Works and as an AmeriCorps Vista member at the Allston Brighton Community Development Corporation. She has served on several boards of directors and advisory committees of community-based organizations.

Walkiria Pool

CEC Co-Director

President and Founder, Centro de Apoyo Familiar

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Peter DeCarlo, an associate professor of environmental health and engineering, studies atmospheric air pollution with applications to ambient air quality, including atmospheric aerosols and emissions from anthropogenic activities including natural gas development. He has published extensively in the areas of atmospheric aerosols (particulate matter), air quality, and climate and performed air quality measurements all over the world, and visited with many Congressional offices to discuss climate change and air quality issues. DeCarlo received his PhD in Atmospheric Science from the University of Colorado and earned a postdoctoral fellowship at the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland and an AAAS Science Policy Fellowship in Washington D.C.

Peter DeCarlo, PhD

IHSFC Co-Director

Professor, Department of Environmental Health and Engineering
Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering

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Matthew A. Aubourg, MSPH is a Research Associate in the Department of Environmental Health and Engineering at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He works alongside community-based organizations to co-create community-driven research addressing environmental health and justice issues, translating research to action. He serves in the Community Science and Innovation for Environmental Justice (CSI EJ) Initiative and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) P30 Center for Community Health: Addressing Regional Maryland Environmental Determinants of Disease (CHARMED) Community Engagement Core.

Matthew Aubourg, MSPH

CEC Coordinator

Research Associate, Department of Environmental Health and Engineering
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

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