Center Personal

Risto H. Rautiainen, PhD, MS, Center Director
Bio
CS-CASH Role: Dr. Rautiainen provides overall leadership for the Center and the AP Core. Dr. Rautiainen grew up on a farm in Finland and participated in crop, dairy, swine, and forestry production work. He completed a Master’s Degree in Agriculture at the University of Helsinki, majoring in Agricultural Engineering. This training included internships working on a farm and a John Deere agricultural machinery dealership in Manitoba, Canada. His thesis work involved guarding of power-take off’s, a major source of agricultural fatalities. He worked six years at the Finnish Farmers Social Insurance Institution, Occupational Safety Department, first as Safety Agronomist, then as Head of the Department. His duties included directing national education and outreach programs, developing injury and occupational disease statistics, and managing a research fund, which funded over 80 projects during his time in office. He moved to Canada in 1991, served as agricultural health and safety consultant, and completed a Certificate Program in Occupational Safety and Health at the University of Manitoba. He joined The University of Iowa, Great Plains Center for Agricultural Health (GPCAH) in 1994, and served as Center Coordinator until 1999, then Associate Director for Outreach during 1999-2001, and Deputy Director during 2001-2009. He completed a PhD in Occupational and Environmental Health at the University of Iowa in 2002. His Dissertation research focused on agricultural injuries and intervention effectiveness research. During 2003-2009, he served as Assistant Professor at the University of Iowa, teaching Agricultural Safety and Occupational Safety.  During 1995-2009, he served as co-investigator in the Iowa FACE (Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation) program, contributing to over 60 agricultural fatality investigations. Since 1996, he has been co-investigator in the Certified Safe Farm program, developing on-farm safety assessment methods. In September 2009, he joined the University of Nebraska Medical Center, College of Public Health, Department of Environmental, Agricultural, and Occupational Health as Associate Professor. His duties involve developing agricultural health and safety programs and teaching agricultural, occupational, and environmental health courses. His contributions to research and policy include identifying evidence-based interventions through systematic reviews, and advancing intervention effectiveness research methods. He brings to the Center extensive international experience in the development, implementation, and evaluation of health and safety programs. With his broad range of expertise and his role as Center Director he will be able to lead and contribute significantly to the Center’s research, injury surveillance, prevention/intervention projects, education/translation projects, outreach, and evaluation efforts. Through the governance and advisory structures in place, and the outstanding multi-disciplinary teams headed by highly qualified Core, project, and program directors, he will be able to lead the Center to successfully achieving its mission. Dr. Rautiainen’s leads the Center and the AP Core in accordance with the research plan, ensuring resources are in place, and budgets, reports and administrative arrangements are prepared in a timely fashion.

Dana Loomis, PhD, Center Deputy Director.
Bio
CS-CASH Role:  Dr. Loomis is Chair and Professor in the Department of Epidemiology at UNMC. He is known internationally for his research and leadership in the area of occupational epidemiology. His current leadership responsibilities outside the university include posts as Editor in Chief of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, the leading international journal in the occupational health field (Impact Factor 3.6) and Chair of the ICOH Scientific Committee on Epidemiology, a worldwide scientific organization that sponsors an annual international conference covering occupational health.  He is also a member of the Board of Scientific Counselors of the National Toxicology Program and past Chair of the Safety and Occupational Study Section, which advises NIOSH and other federal agencies on applications for extramural research funding.  His research interests cover several areas directly relevant to agricultural health, including injuries, lung disease and exposure assessment, and he has over 150 scientific publications.  Dr. Loomis’s extensive experience with diverse aspects of occupational health research and his international recognition in the field ensure that he will be effective as Deputy Director of the Center.  Dr. Loomis will provide scientific direction and consultation for center activities in the areas of research design, epidemiology, and reporting of results in scientific literature.

Todd A. Wyatt, PhD, Research Core Director.
Bio
CS-CASH Role:  Dr. Wyatt is an established independent researcher in lung disease. He is nationally recognized for his work in environmental exposure models of lung inflammatory injury. His research involves the impact of cigarette smoke and alcohol on lung innate immunity and protective barrier function. His current research also involves the synergy of cigarette smoking and alcohol consumption on occupational and environmental inhalation injury from workplace dusts and toxins. These research interests are well integrated with the research proposed in the CS-CASH application. Dr. Wyatt is currently the Principal Investigator of on a NIAAA R01, a Merit Award Grant from the Department of Veterans Affairs, and a NIOSH R01 entitled: “Organic Dust Epithelial PKC Activation in Airway Disease.” His current portfolio of active research grant funding is in excess of $9.5 M in direct costs including serving as a Co-Investigator on a recently-funded NIEHS ONES award entitled: “Role of pattern recognition receptors in organic dust induced airways disease.” Dr. Wyatt also serves as the Nebraska Project Director for an anticipated (scored a 21) NIAAA-funded R24 multi-center human specimen bank for alcohol use disorders that requires the coordinated interaction between the University of Colorado, Emory University, Louisiana State University Medical Center at New Orleans, and UNMC.  At mid-career, Dr. Wyatt has published over 75 peer-reviewed manuscripts and presented over 150 abstracts at scientific conferences. In his role as Core Director of research for the CS-CASH, Dr. Wyatt will extend his research productivity experience to support agricultural occupational studies of injury surveillance and effects of sleep deprivation. Dr. Wyatt has been on the editorial board of two international scientific journals. He has served on the national program committee for Experimental Biology and is currently a member of the Environmental and Occupational Health program committee for the American Thoracic Society. As an active collaborator with researchers in Colorado, Iowa and Saskatoon, Dr. Wyatt is poised to maximize research collaborative efforts between CS-CASH and other agricultural safety and health institutions. Dr. Wyatt will direct the Research Core with specific focus on the Center's laboratory-based research.

Shawn Gibbs, PhD, CIH, Prevention/Intervention Core Director,
Bio
CS-CASH Role:  Dr. Gibbs is an Associate Professor in the UNMC Department of Environmental, Agricultural & Occupational Health.  He received a B.S. in Biology from The Ohio State University, and both a M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Cincinnati in Environmental Science, Water Quality Processes Science.  Dr. Gibbs was a US Fulbright Scholar to Egypt in 2006.  His previous work experience includes three years as a contract Biologist/Toxicologist for the USEPA working on environmental water quality programs.  For five years, he was an Assistant Professor at the University of Texas, Houston School of Public Health.  His research area is environmental exposure assessment, focusing on environmental microbiology and bioaerosols (bacterial, antibiotic resistant bacteria, fungal, viral) from the indoor and ambient environments, and water exposures. Dr. Gibbs is the author of over three dozen peer reviewed articles.  He has served as a reviewer for over a dozen journals and has served as grant reviewer for multiple organizations including the USEPA and Fulbright Commission.  Dr. Gibbs’ research focus has been exposure assessment, particularly in the work place, including the agricultural environment.  Currently, Dr. Gibbs is co-Investigator of a NIOSH R03 to investigate biological and chemical exposure associated with the spray irrigation of reused wastewater.  While faculty at the University of Texas Houston School of Public Health, Dr. Gibbs was the Co-Director of the Dissemination Core for a $4.1 million P20 Center focused on Hispanic Health Disparities from 2004-2008, and Co-Director of the Research Training and Education Core for the subsequent $6.8 million Center of Excellence.  Dr. Gibbs serves as the UNMC College of Public Health’s Master’s Programs Director.  In this role, he has administrative responsibility for all concentrations within the MPH program, all MS degree programs, certificate programs. Dr. Gibbs will direct the Prevention/Intervention Core with specific emphasis on developing industrial hygiene and workplace assessment methods.

Susanna G. Von Essen, MD, MPH, Education/Translation Core Director
Bio
CS-CASH Role: Dr. Von Essen grew up on a farm in eastern Nebraska, where she saw firsthand the impact of farming practices on respiratory health.  In her 20+ years of medical practice and research she has focused on rural health and safety issues, particularly respiratory health and how exposure to organic dust from hogs, cattle and grain affects respiratory symptoms and lung function.  She has initiated community based agricultural health and safety projects for which she secured extramural funding from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and from NIOSH. She continues to collaborate with colleagues who are studying health effects of exposure to the swine confinement environment and to grain dust.  Her role in these collaborations is in part to disseminate the results from their work to the farming community. An example of this dissemination is speaking on annual basis to the LEAD fellows (farming and other rural community participants in a W.K. Kellogg Foundation funded community development project) about research findings relevant to production agriculture in the region. Dr. Von Essen will direct the Education/Translation Core with special emphasis on engaging the agricultural community and education on pulmonary medicine.

Eleanor G. Rogan, PhD. Pilot/Feasibility Projects and Emerging Issues Program Director.
Bio
CS-CASH Role: Dr. Rogan’s research has been devoted to understanding the events and processes that initiate cancer.  She spent many years investigating how polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons are metabolically activated to forms that react with DNA to initiate cancer.  More recently, she has investigated the role of estrogen-DNA adducts in the etiology of breast and prostate cancer and how to prevent formation of these adducts and, thus, cancer initiation.  Throughout her career she has maintained an interest in environmental chemicals, especially agrichemicals, and their role in the induction of cancer.  Dr. Rogan served on the Executive Committee of the University of Nebraska Center for Environmental Toxicology from 1997 to 2008.  She as served on and chaired numerous review committees for UNMC Seed Grants, American Cancer Society Institutional Seed Grants, UNMC graduate student assistantships, NIH program project grants, and DoD research grants and fellowships.  She has chaired the Department of Environmental Agricultural and Occupational Health since it was established in 2007.  This professional experience makes her well-qualified to lead the Pilot/Feasibility Project section of the Central States Center for Agricultural Safety and Health.

Debra J. Romberger, MD, Outreach Program Director.
Bio
CS-CASH Role:  Dr. Romberger will serve as the Outreach Program director for the CS-CASH. Dr. Romberger brings tremendous administrative and leadership skills to the position. Dr. Romberger is the Associate Chief of Staff (ACOS) for the Research Service at the Omaha Veteran’s Affairs Medical Center. In addition, Professor Romberger is the Vice Chair for Research in the UNMC Department of Internal Medicine. As a founding faculty member in the Environmental, Agricultural and Occupational Health Department, Dr. Romberger’s career interest in agricultural occupational lung diseases are a natural extension of her upbringing on a farm outside Abilene, KS. A prolific academician and well published, Dr. Romberger is a PI on a R01 award from NIOSH and also holds a VA Merit Review Award. As a clinician, Dr. Romberger engages in translational work and is currently studying a population of veterans who have a history of agricultural exposure. Dr. Romberger excels at creating educational outreach programs and runs several such summer programs for youth interested in research and healthcare fields. In addition, Dr. Romberger has extended professional outreach programs to numerous community groups ranging from underrepresented minorities to the homeless.

Mary Cramer, PhD, RN, APHN-BC. Evaluation Program Director.
Bio
CS-CASH Role:  Dr. Cramer is an Associate Professor and Chair of Community-Based Health Department in the UNMC College of Nursing.  Her primary research areas are evaluation of community-based coalitions/collaborations and the nursing workforce. She brings 10 years of experience as a researcher, consultant and graduate instructor on health systems, health policy, evaluation, and community and public health nursing. She has published conceptual evaluation models and developed a copy-righted evaluation instrument for community coalitions that has been used in a study of five countries and other studies across the US. Her grant support is in evaluation research (ie, process & structure, social, economic and environmental impacts in the community). She is also funded in nursing workforce. She brings expertise in the theory and practice of program evaluation and experience in working with evaluation research teams. She will direct all evaluation activities for program outcomes and impacts as well as evaluation to strengthen the internal governance activities of the Center.