Faculty & Staff

Department of Environmental, Agricultural & Occupational Health faculty, staff, and their research interest:

Jesse E. Bell, PhD - Claire M. Hubbard Professor of Water, Climate and Health

My research explores the relationships of extreme weather, climate variability, and climate change on natural and human processes. The climate that we experience controls...

Cheryl Beseler, PhD - Associate Professor

Dr. Beseler’s research has primarily focused on the association of pesticide exposure on mental health in farmers and risk factors for substance use disorders...

Eric C. Carnes, PhD - Associate Professor

My research focuses extensively on interdisciplinary research projects aimed at combining inorganic nanomaterials with biological materials and living cells to create novel solutions to problems in public health...

Shaun Cross, PhD - Research Assistant Professor

My research uses a mixture of wet-lab and computational methods, heavily focused in genomics-based research. Next-generation sequencing technologies can detect microbial agents, both known and unknown.

Ellen Duysen, MPH - Community Outreach Specialist

Coordinator for the Central States Center for Agricultural Safety and Health (CS-CASH) which includes assisting the Center Director in planning, coordinating and monitoring the 23 projects funded by the Center.

Babak J. Fard, PhD - Research Assistant Professor

Babak is an environmental data scientist with an interdisciplinary engineering graduate degree. He works to use different methods and tools to help improve the understanding of the effects of climate on health. He values research that uses advanced analyses, while providing practical results for different interested groups.

Jocelyn J. Herstein, PhD, MPH - Assistant Professor

My research focuses on high-consequence infectious disease preparedness and management, with focus on infection prevention and control, high-level isolation, training and education, and health system preparedness...

Kristina Kintziger, PhD - Associate Professor

Environmental exposures affect every aspect of our physical and mental health, quality of life, and life expectancy.

Rachel Lookadoo, JD - Assistant Professor

Research interests are public health law, emergency preparedness and response, health impacts of climate change, drought and extreme climate events, crisis standards of care and medical surge, and isolation and quarantine.

John J. Lowe, PhD - Professor and Interim Chair

John J. Lowe, PhD serves as the Assistant Vice Chancellor for Health Security Training and Education, Director of Research for the Nebraska Biocontainment Unit,...

JoEllyn M. McMillan, PhD - Associate Professor

Research interests and training are in the field of toxicology.  Past research areas have involved the use of cell and whole animal models to study mechanisms of liver toxicity of drugs and environmental chemicals...

Matthew W. Nonnenmann, PhD, CIH - Professor

Dr. Nonnenmann is interested in using unique tools to characterize and control exposures to bioaerosols using engineering, administrative and personal protection solutions...

Catherine Pratt, MS - Instructor

Research interests include emerging infectious diseases, pathogen discovery and laboratory capacity building...

Risto Rautiainen, PhD - Professor

Research interests include the following: agricultural and occupational health and safety; intervention effectiveness research; injury epidemiology; agricultural safety engineering; health and safety training, education, and outreach...

Eleanor Rogan, PhD - Professor

Research centers around elucidating mechanisms of activation of carcinogens, identifying carcinogen-DNA adducts, and correlating adducts with oncogenic mutations.  From our previous study of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH)...

Mystera Samuelson, PhD - Assistant Professor

Dr. Samuelson is an ethologist specializing in the assessment of animal behavior and cognition, animal welfare, and human-animal interactions. Her research focuses on the refinement of behavioral assessments to promote reproducibility and rigor while simultaneously improving animal welfare outcomes.

Terry Stentz, PhD, MPH, CPE, CPC - Associate Professor

Occupational safety and health for general industry, construction, and transportation; industrial engineering and organizational psychology; ergonomics in food processing, manufacturing...

Nick Stergiou, PhD - Professor

Human movement variability; biomechanics; motor control; occupational biomechanics; ergonomics; biomedical engineering; biotechnology; bioengineering; occupational health; movement disorders...

Todd Wyatt, PhD - Professor

Research is directed toward the understanding of airway epithelial cell function under physiologic and disease conditions.  We are interested in the mechanistic signal transduction pathways that define ciliary beating, pro-inflammatory...

Aaron Yoder, PhD - Associate Professor

Research interest is to improve the health of workers in agriculture and related industries through science based research, product development and outreach.  My specific interests are in the research and development of sound ergonomic...

Muhammad Zahid, PhD - Research Assistant Professor

Interdisciplinary chemical and biochemical approaches and techniques to focus on the etiology of human cancers, leukemia and Parkinson’s disease with a major focus to understand the mechanism of cancer initiating steps by natural...

 
Affiliated Faculty

Adjunct Faculty

  • Larry Figgs, PhD
  • Steven Hermansky, PhD
  • Ryan Klataske, PhD
  • John Linville, PhD
  • Jeffery Miller, PhD
  • Muhammad Saeed, PhD

Courtesy Faculty


Staff

Christine Allmon - Program Manager

Christine is an experienced professional with a diverse background in grant management, program development, and administrative coordination. Her academic and professional experiences has equipped her with strong analytical skills, financial acumen, and a deep understanding of research and development processes.

Rachael Birn, MPH - Epidemiologist, Nebraska Public Health Tracking Program

Rachael is a graduate of the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists Applied Epidemiology Fellowship and holds an MPH in Epidemiology from University of South Florida. Her fellowship with the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services focused on infectious diseases at the human-animal-environmental interface.

Rachel Maley

Provides administrative support to department faculty and coordinates the Environmental Health, Occupational Health and Toxicology graduate program.

Siddhi Munde, MS - Research Data Analyst

Siddhi works on water quality and health outcomes research. She is responsible for data engineering, visualizations, spatial data analysis and machine learning based modeling. Her research interest is integration of geo-information analytics and public health.

 Jenelle Pomicter - Administrator I

Provides cost accounting, financial and analytical resources to the department.

Summer Woolsey, MPH - Communications and Outreach Coordinator

Research interests include health communication and health equity...


Contact

Department of Environmental, Agricultural & Occupational Health
984388 Nebraska Medical Center
Omaha, NE 68198-4388

Administrative: Rachel Maley
Office: 402-559-8924
Email

UNMC Graduate Studies Office
Phone: 402-559-6531 
Email