David Svendsgaard, Board Member, RTC-SRA

I was a statistician in EPA Health Effects Lab for 20 years. I have always enjoyed fitting models to data in order to apply scientific study data to environmental issues. These issues involved the need for cooling towers at the Brunswick Plant, the toxicity of releases from Three- Mile-Island, pesticides, a risk assessment for a gasoline additive, and the joint toxicity of chemical mixtures. After retirement from EPA, I worked as a consultant. I prepared lesson plans for a course in the statistics of environmental sampling for DOE. I also consulted on the design of experiments for the development of a gas turbine combustor. I am currently back at EPA in the National Center for Risk Assessment, and serve as the key statistician to the office director. This includes data analysis, reviewing articles, and simulations. My current interest is in measurement error models, and observational studies.

I am interested in the statistical applications to risk assessment. I closely followed the anthrax terrorism, the SAR epidemic, and the shuttle accident proceedings.

I would like to see the Chapter invite speakers who can talk to diverse audience groups. So, even if their talk is highly technical, they provide enough information so that technical people in other fields can understand the talk. I am also interested in the Chapter giving an opportunity to the members to further their careers in risk assessment. This would include training, opportunity to present, networking, and possibly discussion groups.