Richard Di Giulio heads the Duke Superfund Basic Research Center where he studies the toxicology of certain Superfund chemicals that can leach into surface and groundwater and pose environmental and human health risks.
tel: (919) 613-8024: e: richd@duke.edu

Research focus: Environmental toxicology. Freshwater and estuarine pollution. Cancer biology. Special emphasis of his work is the elucidation of mechanisms of exposure and toxicity in humans and ecosystems to particular Superfund chemicals selected based upon their potential significance with respect to reproductive and developmental effects.

Jonathan Freedman studies environmental toxicology, especially how organisms respond when they are exposed to toxic concentrations of transition metals, and the mechanisms of toxin-related disease, developmental abnormalities and carcinogenesis.
 tel: (919) 613-8037: e: jonf@duke.edu

Research focus: Molecular biology, cell biology and molecular toxicology. Toxicogenomics, the relationship between toxicant exposure and gene expression.
   
The current focus of Freedman’s research is directed toward understanding how cadmium induces the expression of dozens of different genes, which encode proteins with functions ranging from repairing intracellular damage to DNA, lipids and proteins to activating signal transduction cascades. Results from this research will help elucidate (a) mechanisms of transition metal induced disease, developmental abnormalities and carcinogenesis and (b) how organisms adapt to increasingly toxic environments. A second area of his research focuses on understanding the regulatory mechanism of metallothionein gene transcription.

Marie Lynn Miranda uses GIS technology to map neighborhoods and determine children’s exposure risk to lead contamination, allergens and asthma, pesticides and industrial toxins.
 tel: (919) 6138023 e: mmiranda@duke.edu

Research focus:Children’s environmental health. Environmental economics and justice. Spatial modeling and geographic information systems. Ecotoxicology.
   
As director of the Children’s Environmental Health Initiative, Miranda works with 11 North Carolina county health departments to create data-rich, multi-layered GIS maps that pinpoint environmental health risks on a house-by-house basis. This helps officials identify and prevent problems, such as lead poisoning, before children become ill. Based on its success in North Carolina, Miranda hopes her initiative can become a national model.
   
“Right now, in most counties we’re unintentionally using children as canaries in the coal mine. We wait for them to get sick and then we go into their daily environments to figure out what caused it,” Miranda says. “What we should be doing is using technology to map risk factors and develop preventive programs that identify hazards, so we can clean them up before kids get sick.”

Wayne Thomann is an expert on indoor air quality. He also studies hazardous waste management, environmental health and safety, and children’s environmental health.
 tel: (919) 684-6320 : e: thoma010@mc.duke.edu

Research focus: Thomann hold joint appointments at the Nicholas School and the Duke University Medical Center. His research centers on indoor air quality. He is an authority on microbial contaminants in indoor environments focusing on the analysis, control and regulation of mold growth within buildings.
He is also an expert on hazardous waste management, environmental health and safety, and children’s environmental health.

Jonathan Wiener is an expert on the design of environmental policy and risk regulation. He is faculty director of the Duke Center for Environmental Solutions.
tel: (919) 613-7054 or 613-8131   e: wiener@law.duke.edu

Research focus: Wiener studies the intersection of science, economics and law in regulatory systems, both national and global, including the design of incentive-based systems such as allowance trading and the design of risk-superior regulatory solutions that overcome risk-risk tradeoffs. His recent research projects include the book Reconstructing Climate Policy, and the series, “Transatlantic Dialogues on Precaution.”
   
He has worked on US and international environmental policy at the White House Council of Economic Advisers and Office of Science and Technology Policy, and at the US Department of Justice, in both the first Bush and Clinton administrations. His policy work and writing have addressed topics including climate change, forest conservation, risk and risk-risk tradeoffs, biotechnology, mass torts, and incentives in regulation and litigation.