Executive Committee

Laura Van Winkle, President

Dr. Laura S Van Winkle is a Professor of Respiratory Toxicology in the School of Veterinary Medicine Department of Anatomy, Physiology and Cell Biology at UC Davis. She received a BS with honors from UC Santa Barbara in Pharmacology and worked in the biotech sector for several years before earning her Ph.D. in Pharmacology and Toxicology from UC Davis. Following completion of her American Lung Association Research Training Fellowship, she joined the faculty at UC Davis in 1997. Her laboratory is at the Center for Health and the Environment where she is the Director of the Cellular and Molecular Imaging Core and Associate Director of the Center. She is a Diplomate of the American Board of Toxicology (DABT) and is a current member of the American Thoracic Society (ATS) Environmental Occupational and Public Health planning committee. She has published over 95 research articles in the fields of inhalation toxicology, developmental lung biology, chemical bioactivation, and lung injury and repair. Her research has focused on the interaction of environmental pollutants and specific lung regions, such as the distal conducting airway epithelium of the lung, and how that contributes to lung remodeling across the lifespan. Currently, she is the Chair of the UC Davis Graduate Group in Pharmacology and Toxicology and Director of the UC Davis NIEHS T32 for Advanced Training in Environmental Health Sciences. Her research lab has mentored over 115 diverse undergraduate and graduate students in STEM. She has served on many NIH Study Sections, including SIEE as a standing member, and as an Associate Editor for the SOT society journal Toxicological Sciences. She was the recipient of the SOT Inhalation and Respiratory Specialty Section Young Investigator Award and the Women in Toxicology Mentoring Award and has previously served IRSS as a councilor and as secretary/treasurer. She has been a full member of SOT since 1998.

Christopher A. Reilly, Vice President

Dr. Christopher A. Reilly is a Professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology at the University of Utah College of Pharmacy and Director of the Center for Human Toxicology. Dr. Reilly also holds adjunct appointments in the Departments of Anesthesiology and Pediatrics (Clinical Pharmacology division) in the University of Utah School of Medicine. Dr. Reilly received a BS in Biology from the University of Utah in 1994 and a PhD in Toxicology from Utah State University in 1999: studying mechanisms of free radical toxicity and iron metabolism with Dr. Steven D. Aust. Dr. Reilly obtained postdoctoral training in lung toxicology and drug metabolism in the laboratory of Dr. Garold S. Yost and the Center for Human Toxicology from 1999-2001 where he received the SOT Colgate-Palmolive award in In Vitro and Alternative Methods. Dr. Reilly’s research program is focused on understanding the health effects of particulate air pollution, as mediated by transient receptor potential (TRP) cation channels, with particular interest in linking exposure with specific mechanisms and asthma in children. He is also broadly interested in xenobiotic metabolism by P450 enzymes (both in the context of pro-toxicant bio-activation), precision pharmacotherapy based on ADME/PK principals for managing asthma and other diseases, and drug discovery and development in the areas of chronic pain, glaucoma, and respiratory diseases. Dr. Reilly’s group has also been involved in developing inhalation-based medications for anesthesia. Dr. Reilly has published 90 peer-reviewed articles and has contributed approximately 20 review articles and book chapters over his career. Dr. Reilly has served as an ad hoc reviewer for the SIEE study section and the NIAID panel for Asthma and Allergic Disease Cooperative Research Centers and is a past member of the NIEHS Environmental Health Sciences Review Committee, which reviews P30 and T32 applications. Dr. Reilly has served SOT at multiple levels, including as: Vice President-Elect, Vice President, President, and Past President of the Mountain West Regional Chapter and Molecular and Systems Biology Specialty Section; Secretary-Treasurer of Mechanisms Specialty Section; member and Chair of the Continuing Education Committee; member of the Scientific Program and Contemporary Concepts Committees; and Councilor for Inhalation and Respiratory Specialty Section. He is currently the Vice President of Inhalation and Respiratory Specialty Section and a Fellow of the Academy of Toxicological Sciences (ATS).

Lisa A. Miller, Vice President-Elect

Dr. Lisa A. Miller is a Professor in the Department of Anatomy, Physiology & Cell Biology at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine. Her research focuses on the impact of environmental inhalation exposures on pulmonary and immune system development during early life using small and large animal models and novel cell culture approaches. Dr. Miller received her PhD in Comparative Pathology from UC Davis and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in immunology at Stanford University. She is the Associate Director of Research, Cardiorespiratory Diseases Unit Leader, and Inhalation Exposure Core Leader at the California National Primate Research Center, one of seven National Primate Research Centers supported by the NIH. Dr. Miller has been an appointed member of the Scientific Review Panel on Toxic Air Contaminants for the California Environmental Protection Agency and NIH Lung Cellular, Molecular, and Immunobiology Study Section; she continues to review grants for the NIH and the American Lung Association. Dr. Miller has authored over 90 articles and book chapters in respiratory immunology, is an Editorial Board member for Toxicological Sciences, and is an Associate Editor for Frontiers in Allergy. Dr. Miller has been a member of SOT since 2015 and most recently served on the Mentoring Committee for the Inhalation and Respiratory Specialty Section. Global news media, including the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), and Reuters, have highlighted Dr. Miller’s work on California wildfire smoke exposure in young rhesus monkeys. In 2020, she was honored as an American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellow for distinguished contributions to understanding the health effects of air pollution and environmentally induced lung injuries.

Jennifer L. Larson-Casey, Secretary

Dr. Larson-Casey is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Pulmonary, Allergy, and Critical Care Medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). Her research focuses on environmental mediators that influence monocyte and macrophage functions which contribute to lung injury. Currently, she is investigating the role of air pollution mediating acute exacerbations of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (AE-IPF). Dr. Larson-Casey received her doctorate from the University of North Dakota in 2012, where she first developed her interests in environmental toxicity, studying the effects of heavy metals promoting bladder carcinogenesis. Continuing her interests in environmental toxins, her postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Iowa and UAB from 2012-2016 was dedicated to understanding the mechanism(s) that modulate macrophage activation after asbestos exposure and the association to the pathogenesis of asbestosis. Dr. Larson-Casey has served on the Systemic Injury by Environmental Exposure (SIEE) study section through the NIH Early Career Reviewer Program and has published 28 peer-reviewed articles including first author manuscripts in Immunity, Journal of Clinical Investigation, FASEB Journal, and American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. As a member of SOT since graduate school, she was awarded the Graduate Student Achievement Award in 2012 from the Women in Toxicology (WIT) Special Interest Group. She is actively involved in SOT. She currently serves on the WIT Program Committee and Awards Committee and has chaired several poster sessions at SOT. One highlight from last year’s meeting was being crowned champion at the ‘Tox Showdown’!

Marie McGee Hargrove, Treasurer

Dr. Marie Hargrove is a Human Safety Project Expert within the Product Safety group at Syngenta Crop Protection located in Greensboro, North Carolina focusing as an expert in regulatory toxicology where she focuses on leading projects for new active ingredients. Dr. Hargrove has extensive expertise in preparing and presenting scientific findings and positions to regulatory and business stakeholders along with interacting with regulatory agencies within North America. Within Syngenta, she also serves on the inhalation (IHL) technical committee where she manages inhalation toxicology studies, fostering collaborations with CROs and working with external stakeholders including serving as a representative on the Crop Life America Inhalation subgroup focusing on identifying new approach methods for inhalation risk assessment. Recently, she and the IHL committee were awarded a grant from the American Chemistry Council Long-Range Research Initiative to continue further optimization and evaluation of the EpiAirway™ assay based as a New Approach Methodology (NAM) to Waive Acute Vertebrate Inhalation Toxicity Testing for Formulated Products. Prior to joining Syngenta, Dr. Hargrove obtained her PhD in Pharmacology and Toxicology at East Carolina University. Following her PhD, Dr. Hargrove completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the US EPA National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory, Cardiopulmonary and Immunotoxicology branch under the direction of Dr. Stephen Gavett. During her postdoc, she directed and managed numerous in vivo toxicological studies which characterized respiratory and systemic effects of known criteria air pollutants in models representative of susceptible populations. To date, she has authored/co-authored 20 peer-reviewed publications which include articles and co-authored the case study on the use of an Integrated Approach for Testing and Assessment (IATA) for New Approach Methodology (NAM) for Refining Inhalation Risk Assessment from Point of Contact Toxicity of the Pesticide, Chlorothalonil recently accepted by OECD. She has been an active member of SOT and NCSOT since 2012 and joined the IRSS in 2014. Dr. Hargrove is a graduate of the Pharmacology and Toxicology program at East Carolina University. She is excited about the opportunity to serve in the IRSS. She would like to contribute by building and/or enhancing relationships with the current membership and the executive committee and work to increase membership across sectors by encouraging colleagues within her organization, collaborators and members of external industry groups to become active members of the IRSS.

Kymberly M. Gowdy, Past President

Dr. Gowdy is an Associate Professor in the Department of Internal Medicine at Ohio State University, where she examines mechanisms of how air pollution increases susceptibility and severity of infectious and inflammatory lung diseases. Specifically, her research examines how danger-associated molecular patterns generated in the lung after air pollution exposure shape the innate immune response. She received her doctorate in Immunology and Toxicology from the North Carolina State University in 2008 and was a postdoctoral fellow at Duke University from 2008–2011 and the National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences from 2011–2014. Dr. Gowdy is the author/co-author of 50 publications including peer-reviewed articles, reviews, and book chapters. She has been an active member of SOT and the Inhalation Respiratory Specialty Section since 2007. She has previously served SOT as the Councilor for the Inhalation and Respiratory Specialty Section, Councilor for the Cardiovascular Specialty Section, and President for the North Carolina Society of Toxicology.

Nikaeta Sadekar, Councilor

Nikaeta Sadekar, PhD, is a Senior Scientist leading the Local Respiratory Toxicity Safety Assessment and its research program at the Research Institute for Fragrance Materials (RIFM). She obtained her MS in Pharmacotherapeutics (2010) and is formally trained in toxicology in the doctoral program (2017) at St. John’s University. She specialized in non-clinical safety assessment for respiratory toxicology during postdoctoral (2018) training at RIFM. Her professional skillsets include human health risk assessment, and her current research interests are associated with developing alternative methods to animal studies using in vitro and in silico tools. Dr. Sadekar is engaged in various collaborations across the scientific community for developing the RIFM Respiratory Science. Communicating scientific projects to a broad audience is part of her role and responsibilities at RIFM. She has co-authored many peer- reviewed publications and serves as a peer reviewer for scientific journals Drug and Chemical Toxicology, Toxicology Research and Applications, Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology, and Critical Reviews in Toxicology. She has also served as a peer reviewer for the US EPA Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention (2020) and on the Scientific Advisory Panel for the FIFRA EPA (2018). Dr. Sadekar is an active member of the Society of Toxicology (SOT). She has previously served as a Postdoctoral Representative (2018) and a Councilor (2019) for the Ethical, Legal, Forensic, and Societal Issues Specialty Section (ELFSI). She has volunteered on the awards committees for the Women in Toxicology (WIT) Special Interest Group and Regulatory and Safety Evaluation Specialty Section (RSESS) and participated in the Mentoring Breakfast activities. Dr. Sadekar was the Newsletter Editor for the American Society for Cellular and Computational Toxicology (ASCCT) from 2019-2021 and is currently a member of the Board of Directors.

Todd Stueckle, Councilor

Dr. Stueckle is a Research Biologist in the Health Effects Laboratory Division at NIOSH in Morgantown, WV, where he uses both cell and animal models to investigate ultrafine particle toxic responses, including lung inflammation, fibrosis, and cancer. He is currently also investigating the effects of firefighting foam and PFAS exposure on firefighter health. He received his doctorate in Biology from West Virginia University in 2008 and was a postdoctoral fellow at West Virginia University and NIOSH from 2009-2013. He possesses broad training with research experience in marine biology, pesticide ecotoxicology, heavy metal toxicology, lung cancer drug development, and nanotoxicology. Dr. Stueckle has served as an Assistant Coordinator and now Coordinator/Co-Chair of the Chronic Disease Program at NIOSH and the National Occupational Research Agenda since 2018. He has mentored 20 trainees, ranging from undergraduate to post-doctoral fellow, and holds two Adjunct Assistant Professor positions at West Virginia University. He is the author of 46 peer-reviewed publications and over 100+ conference presentations and abstracts. His research in occupational lung disease has received awards from several SOT Specialty Sections, NIOSH, and CDC. He has been an SOT member since 2012 and has served SOT in the following capacities: AESOT Councilor; AESOT President-Elect, President, Past President; AESOT Vice President; AESOT RC4 Liaison; AESOT FUTURE Liaison; ToxScholar; NAMSS Councilor; and Session Chair for several Nanotoxicology Sessions.

Colette Miller, Junior Councilor

Dr. Colette Miller is a Biologist/Principal Investigator in the Cardiopulmonary Immunotoxicology Branch at the US EPA, where she studies how air pollutant exposures impact maternal, paternal, and intergenerational health outcomes. She received a doctorate in Nutrition from the University of Georgia in 2014 and was a postdoctoral scholar at the US EPA from 2015–2020. She has authored/co-authored 34 peer-reviewed articles and has received numerous research awards from SOT and other scientific societies. Dr. Miller has been a member of SOT since 2015 and was the IRSS postdoctoral representative from 2019–2020.

Alexandra Noël, Junior Councilor

Dr. Alexandra Noël is an Associate Professor in the Department of Comparative Biomedical Sciences in the School of Veterinary Medicine at Louisiana State University (LSU). She received her bachelor’s degree in biomedical sciences, her master’s in occupational and environmental health, as well as her PhD in public health, with a specialization in toxicology and risk assessment, all from the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Montreal (Quebec, Canada). Her PhD work in nanotoxicology focused on pulmonary effects induced by inhaled TiO2 nanoparticles. She did her postdoctoral training at LSU from 2013 to 2017 on pulmonary responses induced by in utero exposures to inhaled environmental pollutants. Dr. Noël’s laboratory conducts inhalation toxicology studies on cardio-pulmonary effects of in utero and adult exposures to cigarette second-hand smoke, electronic cigarette aerosols, and ultrafine particles. These studies investigate the fundamental mechanisms at the epigenetic, molecular, and cellular levels that underlie the developmental origins of health and disease, with respect to respiratory effects caused by distinct emerging inhaled environmental pollutants. Dr. Noël’s laboratory is presently funded by the NIEHS and the NHLBI to conduct research on electronic-cigarette aerosols and cardio- pulmonary toxicity in vitro and in vivo. In addition, Dr. Noël is the Manager of the LSU Inhalation Research Facility and the leader of the Inhalation Toxicology Core of the LSU Superfund Research Program. Her publication record includes 36 peer- reviewed scientific articles that generated over 540 citations. Further, Dr. Noël is the co-Chair of the Membership Committee (2022-2024) of the American Thoracic Society (ATS), and a member of the NIH Advisory Committee on Research on Women’s Health (2022–2026). She has been a member of SOT and the IRSS since 2011 and served SOT in the following capacities: (1) She was the 2015–2016 postdoctoral representative for the SOT South Central Chapter. (2) She was a chairperson for Respiratory Toxicology poster sessions, sponsored by the IRSS at the 2017 and 2019 Annual Meetings. (3) She was a chairperson for workshops and symposiums, sponsored by the IRSS, at the 2019, 2022, and 2024 Annual Meetings. (4) She was the 2017–2019 Councilor for the SOT South Central Chapter. (5) She was President of the SOT South Central Chapter (2021–2022). (6) Since 2018, she has been a mentor (peer or host) for the CDI Undergraduate Diversity Program and gave the 2022 and 2023 Undergraduate Diversity Program Introduction to Toxicology presentation at those SOT Annual Meetings. (7) She is also a current member of the SOT Education and Career Development Committee (ECDC) (2021–2024).

Eva Vitucci, Postdoctoral Representative

Dr. Eva Vitucci is a postdoctoral fellow at Texas A&M University where she investigates the inhalation hazard and exposure risk of volatile organic compounds using a combination of analytical and in vitro approaches. She received her doctorate in Toxicology from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill in 2022. Dr. Vitucci is a recipient of the NIEHS Ruth L. Kirschstein Predoctoral Fellowship (F31), the author/co-author of 3 publications, the recipient of 12 SOT affiliated graduate/postdoctoral awards and is consistently engaged in mentoring activities for students across all ages. Dr. Vitucci has been a member of SOT and various SOT Specialty Sections and Special Interest Groups since 2018. She has previously served as a mentor and panelist for the SOT Undergraduate Development Program. She recently served as the Postdoctoral Representative for the Lone Star SOT (LSSOT) Regional Chapter where she actively helped plan the Annual LSSOT Meeting.

Marissa Guttenberg, Graduate Student Representative

Ms. Guttenberg is a 5th year PhD candidate at Duke University in the Integrated Toxicology and Environmental Health Program. In Dr. Robert Tighe’s Lab, Ms. Guttenberg researches mechanisms of innate immune activation that drive ozone-induced acute lung injury. Her experience with toxicology stretches back to her undergraduate career in a public health-oriented lab, where she served as a program ambassador during outreach events designed to increase public awareness of toxicology. As a graduate student, Ms. Guttenberg serves the Duke University PhD community through her work in the Nicholas School of the Environment PhD advocacy council and in leadership positions to improve campus wide PhD experiences. This includes organizing and hosting events tailored to networking, PhD development, as well as mental health awareness. In addition, as an active member of SOT since 2019, she has participated in various events including those held by the IRSS board and the North Carolina Chapter of the Society of Toxicology. Finding particularly great value in these lectures and events, she would plan to increase the awareness of these events in the graduate student community. In addition, Ms. Guttenberg would plan to organize and facilitate events that further opportunities for engagement between more senior and junior IRSS members. She looks forward to the opportunity to serve the IRSS community as a Graduate Student Representative on the IRSS Executive Committee.