2007 Women’s Health & the Environment Conference
Women’s Health & the Environment: New Science, New Solutions was held in Pittsburgh at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center on April 20, 2007. The conference was sponsored by Teresa Heinz, The Heinz Endowments and Magee-Womens Hospital of UPMC.
If you missed the conference or you want to review comments from any of the speakers, click on any of the video podcast links below.
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Agenda
Welcome & Introductions:(watch)
Opening Address:(watch) Morning Keynote:(watch) The New Science Panel:(watch)
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Luncheon Keynote:(watch) The New Solutions Panel:(watch)
Introduction of Closing Keynote Speaker:(watch) Closing Keynote:(watch) Concluding Remarks:(watch) |
Speakers
Note: All speaker remarks will be archived for viewing and downloading after the conference.
- Teresa Heinz
- Fran Drescher
- Leslie Davis
- Terrence (Terry) J. Collins, PhD
- Steve Curwood
- Devra Lee Davis, PhD, MPH
- Tyrone Hayes, PhD
- Jane Houlihan
- John Peterson Myers, PhD
- Herbert Needleman, MD
- Frederica P. Perera, DrPH
- Peggy Shepard
- Sandra Steingraber, PhD
- Laurie Valeriano
Speaker bios reflect 2007 information.
Teresa Heinz
Mrs. Heinz is the chairman of The Heinz Endowments and the Heinz Family Philanthropies. She is recognized as a premier environmental leader, and she has been a long-time and tireless educator and advocate on behalf of women’s health and economic security. In September 2003, she was presented with the Albert Schweitzer Gold Medal for Humanitarianism for her work protecting the environment, promoting health care and education and uplifting
women and children throughout the world.
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Fran Drescher
Ms. Drescher is a two-time Emmy® and Golden Globe® nominee. After bravely winning her battle with uterine cancer, Ms. Drescher wrote her second New York Times best seller, "Cancer Schmancer," for which she received the prestigious National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship Writer’s Award.
Ms. Drescher successfully lobbied Congress to pass Johanna’s Law, a bi-partisan bill also known as The Gynecologic Cancer Education and Awareness Act. She also launched the Cancer Schmancer Movement, a non-profit organization dedicated to ensuring that all women’s cancers be diagnosed in STAGE 1, when they are most curable.
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Leslie Davis
Ms. Davis was appointed president of Magee-Womens Hospital of UPMC in September 2004. Ms. Davis has an extensive career in health care spanning over 20 years and has held prominent positions at medical centers including Mt. Sinai Medical Center (New York), Thomas Jefferson University, Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, and Tenet Pennsylvania (Graduate Hospital). Ms. Davis holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of South Florida and master’s degree in health and social policy from Harvard University.
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Terrence (Terry) J. Collins, PhD
Dr. Collins is a Thomas Lord Professor of Chemistry and a leading expert on green chemistry. He is an advocate for greater use of green chemistry to achieve a sustainable civilization and an inventor of a highly promising green chemistry technology.
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Steve Curwood
Mr. Curwood is the executive producer and host of NPR’s Living on Earth. Mr. Curwood has been a journalist for more than 30 years with experience at NPR, CBS News, the Boston Globe, WBUR-FM/Boston and WGBH-TV/Boston. He shared the 1975 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service as part of the Boston Globe's education team. He is president of the World Media Foundation, Inc. and lectures in environmental science and public policy at Harvard University.
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Devra Lee Davis, PhD, MPH
Dr. Davis heads the Environmental Oncology Center at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute and is professor of epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health. She has been honored on a national level for her research and public policy work and was a National Book Award finalist for “When Smoke Ran Like Water.”
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Tyrone Hayes, PhD
Dr. Hayes is well known for his discovery that changes in Reed frogs’ skin serve as tiny red flags that can warn when dangerous, even cancer-causing, chemicals are present in a water source. Reed frogs could become a low-cost way to test for water pollution in developing countries. Dr. Hayes holds an undergraduate degree in organismic and evolutionary biology from Harvard University and a PhD in integrative biology from the University of California, Berkeley, where he currently serves as a professor.
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Jane Houlihan
Ms. Houlihan directs research programs at the Environmental Working Group (EWG). In spearheading work that exposes health risks from toxins in food, air, water and consumer products, Ms. Houlihan has propelled EWG to the forefront of debates on such critical issues as mercury in seafood, contaminants in drinking water, chemicals in personal care products, and the human “body burden,” or what EWG calls "the pollution in people."
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John Peterson Myers, PhD
Dr. Myers is founder and CEO of Environmental Health Sciences, an organization engaged in advancing public understanding of environmental links to health, and senior advisor to Commonweal and the Jenifer Altman Foundation. He co-authored “Our Stolen Future, which explores the scientific basis of concern for how contamination threatens fetal development.
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Herbert Needleman, MD
Dr. Needleman is a leading expert on the effects of lead poisoning in children. A pediatrician and child psychiatrist at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, he is known for groundbreaking studies on the developmental implications of lead exposure. Dr. Needleman is the founder of the Alliance to End Childhood Lead Poisoning, now called the Alliance for Healthy Homes, a national nonprofit working to prevent and eliminate home hazards such as lead, mold, radon and pesticides.
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Frederica P. Perera, DrPH
Dr. Perera is a professor of Environmental Health Sciences and the director of the Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health. She leads a team of scientists, researchers, community activists, and other experts in studying the effects of pre- and post-natal exposures to common urban air pollutants on children's respiratory health and neurocognitive development.
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Peggy Shepard
Ms. Shepard is the co-founder and executive director of West Harlem Environmental Action (WE ACT), a platform from which she has helped to locally fight against environmental hazards and nationally serve as a model for grassroots activism and coalition building. She is an environmental crusader and tireless champion for ecological equality on behalf of inner cities.
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Sandra Steingraber, PhD
Dr. Steingraber is a renowned ecologist, author and internationally recognized expert on the environmental links to cancer and reproductive health. She has taught biology at Columbia College, Chicago, held visiting fellowships at the University of Illinois, Radcliffe/Harvard, and Northeastern University, and served on President Clinton’s National Action Plan on Breast Cancer. She is the author of “Living Downstream: An Ecologist Looks at Cancer” and the Environment and the co-author of “The Spoils of Famine.”
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Laurie Valeriano
Ms. Valeriano is the policy director for the Washington Toxics Coalition (WTC). She directs WTC's numerous policy campaigns and serves as media coordinator for the organization. She advocates against persistent pollution, pulp mills, incinerators, and toxic waste in fertilizer issues.
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