Wendy Heiger-Bernays

Wendy Heiger-Bernays is a faculty member in the Department of Environmental Health at the BU School of Public Health where she applies her training in molecular toxicology to practical questions about the impact of industrial chemicals, consumer products and pharmaceuticals in waste streams on people’s health. She works collaboratively to assess toxicity of chemicals that are able to modify the metabolic pathways in juvenile and prenatal fish and rodent models, to characterize and screen chemicals with endocrine activity in water, characterize health risks posed by vapors in homes that originate beneath the ground, and the development of practical interventions to commonly measured chemical hazards in agricultural soils. Dr. Heiger-Bernays is PI of the Research Translation Core (RTC) for the NIEHS-supported BU Superfund Program. Her work on the RTC is focused on technology and information transfer of the science to multiple audiences, including environmental regulatory and health agencies as well as with advocacy groups and community groups. Her research and teaching include a focus on effective ways to translate findings from the laboratory to multiple audiences. Heiger-Bernays’ overall objective is to engage communities in their understanding and mitigation of environmental health risks. She currently serves as a member of the Massachusetts DEP Waste Site Advisory Committee and the Science Advisory Board for the Toxics Use Reduction Institute and is chair of her local board of health. In 2015-2016, she was a AAAS Science and Technology Fellow hosted in the Office of Science Coordination and Policy at the US EPA, working in the Endocrine Disrupting Screening Program.

Dr. Heiger-Bernays was nominated for the SAB by the Toxics Use Reduction Institute.