About PANWAT

Dr. Yijie Geng is an Assistant Professor at the University of Washington, where he uses the zebrafish model in combination with high-throughput screening and deep learning to study the environmental impacts on mental health and diseases. He received his doctorate in Cell and Developmental Biology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2015 and was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard in 2016 and at the University of Utah from 2017–2022. He is an author/co-author of 10 publications. He has been a member of SOT since 2023.

Dr. Marsillach is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences at the University of Washington. Her research focuses on inhalation toxicology from two key perspectives: mechanistic studies using animal models and in vitro cultures/organ-on-a-chip, and exposure science through the measurement of biomarkers in human biospecimens. Her laboratory investigates the effects of traffic-related air pollution, wildfire smoke, and volatile organic compounds, particularly their contributions to neurodevelopmental impairment, accelerated aging, and age-related diseases. She earned her PhD in Biochemistry from the University Rovira i Virgili (Spain), and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Washington (Division of Medical Genetics). Dr. Marsillach Chairs the Neurotoxin Exposure-2 panel at the Toxic Exposures Research Program from the Department of Defense, and has co-authored 80 peer-reviewed publications. A member of SOT since 2012, she is involved in PANWAT, the Women in Toxicology Special Interest Group, and the Neurotoxicology Specialty Section (NTSS). She has served SOT in the capacity of poster judge (NTSS and PANWAT), and as a volunteer in the SOT Inclusion, Diversity, and Engagement Committee (IDEC).

Dr. Andrew Yeh is an exposure scientist and risk assessor at Dow Chemical Company where he conducts human health and environmental risk assessments to support Dow’s Packaging and Specialty Plastics business unit, and Post-Consumer Recycling Stewardship Program. He also provides consultations to Dow businesses and manufacturing operations on a variety of human health risk management topics. Prior to joining Dow, he was a Senior Toxicologist at the environmental risk consulting firm Gradient where he provided toxicological expertise in support of litigation matters (2018-2025). From 2022 to 2025, Dr. Yeh served as Business Development Coordinator for Gradient's Risk Sciences practice. Dr. Yeh received his PhD in environmental toxicology from the University of Washington (UW) in 2017 and was a Senior Fellow in the Department of Radiology at the UW School of Medicine from 2017 to 2018. He is the author/co-author of 16 peer-reviewed publications and one book chapter. Dr. Yeh has been a member of Society of Toxicology (SOT) since 2014 and served as the Pacific Northwest Association of Toxicologists' (PANWAT) Senior Councilor from 2023–2024 and Secretary-Treasurer from 2024-2026. He is a Diplomate of the American Board of Toxicology.

Dr. Josi Herron is a Senior Toxicologist and Associate Technical Fellow within The Boeing Company's Environment, Health, and Safety organization, where she provides technical expertise in chemical hazard and risk assessment to support workplace and product safety. She received her doctorate in Environmental Toxicology with an emphasis in Human Health Risk Assessment from the University of Washington in 2019 and completed the Green Chemistry and Chemical Stewardship certificate program at the University of Washington in 2022. She is the author/co-author of 10 peer-reviewed articles, including a Tox Spotlight paper in the September 2019 issue of Toxicological Sciences. Dr. Herron has been a member of SOT and the Pacific Northwest Association of Toxicologists (PANWAT) since 2012 and has previously served as the Graduate Student Representative and Councilor of PANWAT. She is a Diplomate of the American Board of Toxicology. Her interests include occupational toxicology, product stewardship, identification of safer chemical alternatives, and promoting the field of toxicology through outreach activities.

Dr. Tina Rogers is Senior Technical Director in the Laboratory Testing Division at WuXi AppTec, Inc., where she provides scientific and technical support to the Business Development Team and WuXi clients. She has spent her career in toxicology in the preclinical CRO industry, mostly in senior management roles. Dr. Rogers received a PhD in Molecular and Cellular Biology and Pathobiology from the Medical University of South Carolina in 1987 and continued training as a Research Fellow at Harvard Medical School/Brigham and Women’s Hospital and a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Medicine at Tufts University. Additionally, she received an MBA from Auburn University in 2005. Dr. Rogers has been a member of SOT since 1996. She has publications and presentations in the areas of sepsis, autoimmune disease, analytical cytometry, gene therapy, toxicology, and immunology. Her interests include regulatory toxicology for pharmaceuticals and mentoring students and junior level staff to increase awareness of opportunities in the preclinical drug development industry.

Dr. Kate Saili is a toxicologist in the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), where she has worked since 2016. Her first role at US EPA was postdoctoral toxicologist in the Office of Research and Development (ORD), where she built computational models of blood-brain barrier development and function. Her other past roles at US EPA include Associate National Program Director in ORD’s Chemical Safety for Sustainability Research Program and toxicologist in the Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards. Dr. Saili earned her PhD in Toxicology from the Department of Environmental and Molecular Toxicology at Oregon State University, where she utilized the zebrafish model to study the neurobehavioral effects of developmental bisphenol A exposure. Kate has been a member of SOT since 2006 and has co-authored 17 peer-reviewed publications. [Views expressed while serving in the capacity of PANWAT Councilor do not necessarily represent the views of the agency or the US.]

Dr. Ava Orr earned her BA in Chemistry from the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University (2020) and her PhD in Toxicology from the University of Montana (2024). Her graduate work centered on how wildfire smoke influences respiratory viral infections. She is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Center for Population Health Research at the University of Montana, where her projects include downscaling PM₂.₅ for communities affected by prescribed burns, developing the Montana Healthy Places environmental health dashboard, evaluating the effects of wildfire smoke and extreme temperatures on fall risk, and studying temperature inversions in relation to respiratory health. She is the author/co-author of six peer-reviewed publications. Dr. Orr has been a Pacific Northwest Association of Toxicologists (PANWAT) member since 2019 served as the Postdoctoral Representative this past year.

Christian Rude is a T32 Postdoctoral Research Fellow serving at Oregon State University (OSU) in the Department of Environmental and Molecular Toxicology and the Department of Biological and Ecological Engineering. He presently studies processes contributing to nontarget chemical signatures in environmentally relevant mixtures such as aqueous film forming foams and low molecular weight dissolved organic matter in the Klamath River Watershed. Christian graduated from Pacific Lutheran University with a degree in chemistry in 2017. He received his PhD from OSU in March 2025 where he utilized zebrafish to study the toxicity and metabolism of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons as both mixtures and individual chemicals. Christian appreciates that toxicology is both a basic and an applied science in which we get to learn new insights into the workings of biology and practical knowledge for using chemicals in a manner that supports human and environmental flourishing.

Baixi He is a third-year PhD student at the University of Washington where he focuses on investigating how environmental toxicant exposure influences molecular interaction to modulate social behavior in various animal models. He earned his Bachelor of Science in Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology from the University of California, Santa Cruz in 2023 where he participated and studied how developmental manganese exposure causes lasting attention deficits accompanied by dysregulation of mTOR signaling pathway. Baixi was recognized with the Undergraduate Dean’s Award each year from 2019–2023.

Shyla Streeter is a second year PhD student in Dr. DeWitt’s immunotoxicology lab at Oregon State University (OSU), studying the effects of PFAS. She received her BS in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from OSU in 2024, serves on the Team Tox Awards Committee, and has been a member of Pacific Northwest Association of Toxicologists (PANWAT) since Fall of 2024. Ms. Streeter has experience in club leadership roles and other positions which have equipped her with strong event coordination and communication skills, which she would effectively apply as the Graduate Student Representative.