Advisory CouncilsJamie Banks2023-08-23T10:55:33-04:00

Scientific

George Allen

Paul Barach

Mathias Basner

Arline Bronzaft

Quiet American Skies

Jennifer Deal

Steve Haas

Neelakshi Hudda

Karen Jubanyik

Regina LaRocque

Sally Lusk

James M. Medeiros

Rick Neitzel

Antonella Radicchi

Maribel Salas

Erica Walker

Lucy Weinstein

Legal

Gina M. Briggs

Chuck Elkins

Monica Hammer

Valerie Seiling Jacobs

John Griffith Johnson, Jr.

Jeanne Kempthorne

Joel A. Mintz

Rick Reibstein

Sidney Shapiro

Steve Taber

Title

George Allen

George Allen is the Chief Scientist at NESCAUM (Northeast States for Coordinated Air Use Management), an interagency association of the eight Northeastern States. He holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Tufts University (1974). At NESCAUM, Mr. Allen is responsible for monitoring and exposure assessment activities across a range of wide range of air topics, including regional haze, air toxics, on and off-road diesel, wood smoke, and continuous aerosol measurement technologies. He served on the chartered EPA CASAC from 2010 to 2016, has been a member of several CASAC review panels since 2004, and is the author or co-author of more than 30 peer-reviewed journal papers on development and evaluation of measurement methods, exposure assessment, and air pollution health effects.

Paul Barach

Paul Barach MD, MPH, Maj (ret.) is an academic scientist, and practicing board-certified in Anesthesia and Critical Care. He is a Clinical Professor at Wayne State University School of Medicine and Children’s Hospital of Michigan, and Faculty at the Jefferson College of Population Health where he teaches in the Masters program on safety, quality and improvement sciences. Paul has more than 25 years of experience as a practicing physician, Chief Medical and Quality Officer, and consultant to academic and community medical centers and integrated delivery systems. He is a formally trained health services researcher, with advanced post graduate training in advanced medical education and assessment methods from the Harvard Medical School Josiah Macy Program medical education, lean six sigma, quality improvement and lean techniques at Intermountain Healthcare. He has had additional training in epidemiology and statistics including both methodological as well as applied HTA research. Prior to that he spent 5 years in the military and was involved in team training, leadership and simulation work. He has published more than 300 scientific papers and 5 books.

Mathias Basner

Mathias Basner, MD, PhD is Associate Professor at University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine. He is a physician and research scientist and the first author of The Lancet’s 2014 article, “Auditory and Non-Auditory Effects of Noise on Health.” His primary research interests concern the effects of sleep loss on neurobehavioral and cognitive functions, the effects of traffic noise, including aviation noise, on sleep and health, and population studies on sleep time and waking activities. Mathias has been an advisor to the World Health Organization (WHO) and performed a systematic evidence review on the effects of noise on sleep for the recently published revision of WHO’s Environmental Noise Guidelines for the European Region. He is currently President of the International Commission of Biological Effects of Noise (ICBEN).

Arline Bronzaft

Quiet American Skies

Dr. Bronzaft is Professor Emerita of the City University of New York, and a researcher, public advocate, and consultant on the effects of noise worldwide for five decades. In her hometown of New York City she has been continuously appointed by five NYC mayors to the Board of GrowNYC where she oversees its noise activities, and assisted in the 2007 revision of New York City’s noise code. Dr. Bronzaft has conducted landmark research on impacts of transit noise on classroom learning and on airport-related noise on the health of residents living near airports. She co-authored the 2011 book “Why Noise Matters” (Earthscan 2011), and the children’s book “Listen to the Raindrops” (illustrated by Steven Parton). Her writings on the impacts of noise on health and well-being have been included in academic journals, book chapters, encyclopedias, and popular media including the New York Times and others. Known as “the Ruth Bader Ginsburg of noise,” she is a forthright public speaker and a forceful advocate who knows how to speak truth to, and collaborate with, political leaders. Dr. Bronzaft has been interviewed and quoted extensively in the media, especially for her pioneering research on the impacts of transportation noise on classroom learning. She is the recipient of a lifetime achievement award (2018 Presidential Citation) from the American Psychological Association.

Jennifer Deal

Jennifer A. Deal, PhD is Assistant Professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, MD. She is an epidemiologist and gerontologist with expertise in hearing loss and cognitive aging. She is an Assistant Professor of Epidemiology and Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery at the Johns Hopkins University and Core Faculty and Associate Director for Academic Training with the Johns Hopkins Cochlear Center for Hearing and Public Health, a first-in-kind research center dedicated to training a generation of clinicians and researchers to understand and address the impact of hearing loss on older adults and public health. Trained in the epidemiology of aging, Dr. Deal studies how hearing loss and vascular factors impact the aging brain and cognition to provide insight into mechanistic pathways involved and to inform development of public health prevention strategies.

Steve Haas

Steve Haas is the CEO and Principal Consultant of SH Acoustics, he has more than thirty years of residential and commercial experience and has led the acoustic/audio design for a wide range of award-winning projects including: the Smithsonian African American Museum (DC), Carnegie’s Zankel Hall (NYC) and the Las Vegas Raiders Headquarters and Broadcast Complex. Steve has also designed hundreds of home theaters, media rooms, 2-channel listening rooms and many other unique spaces in private homes.

He is an advocate for raising awareness of the adverse health impacts of excessive noise on single- and multi-family homeowners and has coined the term “residential acoustic wellness” as a way of emphasizing the importance of creating residential environments with quiet and controlled acoustics.

Steve is often sought out as an industry expert and has been invited to speak at seminars and conventions all over the world, author many articles, and participate in dozens of podcasts/videocasts on various related acoustic topics.

Neelakshi Hudda

Neelakshi Hudda, PhD, is Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Tufts University. Dr. Hudda has over 15 years of research experience in urban air pollution with a particular focus on transportation-origin emissions and ultrafine particulate matter. Before entering her current role in 2017, she trained as a post-doctoral Research Associate at Univ. of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA researching the impacts of aviation emissions on ground-level air quality and published the seminal work on the long downwind spatial range of the impacts of aviation and airport emissions on ultrafine particles. That significant discovery is recognized for its implications for the exposure and health of millions who reside near airports in large cities. She has over 30 peer-reviewed scientific papers and published a series of research articles identifying and quantifying the impacts of airport-origin emissions on ambient air quality, residential indoor air quality and health effects associated with these emissions in communities near airports.

Karen Jubanyik

Karen Jubanyik, MD is Associate Professor in Emergency Medicine at Yale University School of Medicine, in New Haven, CT. She is committed to issues that affect quality of life and protecting the environment. Her concern with noise and pollution from gas leaf blowers prompted her to approach the city of New Haven and Yale about considering alternatives. In addition to her medical responsibilities, Dr Jubanyik serves on the BioEthics committee, supervises students treating refugees, provides leadership for a respite program. She received her medical degree from Yale and completed residency training in Internal Medicine and Emergency Medicine at Yale-New Haven Hospital (YNHH). She currently serves on the Executive Board of the Connecticut Chapter of Emergency Physicians, working with the Connecticut legislature on a number of legislative initiatives.

Regina LaRocque

Regina LaRocque, MD, MPH is an infectious disease specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital and Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. She has performed laboratory and clinical research for 15 years. She has authored more than 100 peer-reviewed publications and book chapters. She served on Wellesley’s Natural Resources Commission, 2017-2020 and is on Quiet Communities’ Health Advisory Council. She is concerned about the impact of climate change on human health and the spread of infectious diseases. She has an MD from Duke University School of Medicine and an MPH from Harvard School of Public Health.

Sally Lusk

Sally Lechlitner Lusk, PhD, RN, FAAOHN, FAAN, is a Professor Emerita from The University of Michigan where she conducted research to prevent noise-induced hearing loss. Her randomized controlled trials identified the factors determining workers’ use of Hearing Protection Devices, developed and tested successful interventions, and inspired NIOSH to establish intramural research programs focused on behavioral factors related to use of personal protective equipment. She also conducted in a worksite one of the first studies to document the real time effects of noise exposure on blood pressure and heart rate. Results of these studies were published in the nursing research, occupational health, and environmental health literature.

Since her retirement she has focused on influencing policies to reduce environmental noise to prevent its myriad harmful effects on health including in environmental justice communities. She and colleagues prepared a Position Paper and a Policy Brief adopted and published by the American Academy of Nursing. A chapter authored with Dr. Marjorie McCullagh describing these negative effects on health will soon be available in the second edition of Environmental Health for Nursing electronic text being published by the Alliance of Nurses for a Healthy Environment.

James M. Medeiros

James M. Medeiros, DO, MPH is a current Harvard Occupational & Environmental medical resident with an expected graduation date of June 30, 2022. He received a Master of Public Health in May 2021, having completed a capstone project on environmental noise pollution focused on traffic sources. He is also a member of the American Public Health Association committee for Noise and Health. Prior to entering residency, James worked eight years as a clinician in the occupational health field of Aerospace Medicine. In this senior leadership role, he oversaw an array of responsibilities to include the hearing conservation program, medical management of special operators, multi-state occupational health requirements, and chaired several working groups / committees. His background also includes training as a public health emergency officer which proved to be a critical role during the initial response to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. James graduated from Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine in 2011 and completed an internal medicine transitional year in 2012 at St. Luke’s Hospital in Bethlehem PA. James is passionate about the intersection of noise related health consequences and preventive public health policy.

Rick Neitzel

Rick Neitzel, PhD, MS, CIH, FAIHA is Associate Professor of Environmental Health Sciences at the School of Public Health (SPH), University of Michigan (U MI), Ann Arbor and an exposure scientist. At the SPH, he directs the Risk Science and Human Health Certificate Program and the Pilot Project Research Grant Program in Occupational Health and Safety Engineering. His research is in the adverse effects of noise on health, especially cardiac health, heavy metals and stressors, and injury risk factors for workers and the public. Prior to his appointment at U MI, he worked as a Research Scientist in the University of Washington’s Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences (1998-2011). He has published over 60 papers on exposures to noise and resulting health impacts, and is currently conducting a series of systematic reviews on noise-related health impacts for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He is co-authors of peer reviewed scientific publications on environmental noise, health outcomes, policy and costs.

Antonella Radicchi

Antonella Radicchi, Ph.D., RA, MArch is Senior Research Associate at the TU Berlin Institute of City and Regional Planning and Principal Investigator of the Hush City project, an a licensed arrchitect. In 2017, she invented Hush City, a citizen science app to identify, map and assess urban quiet areas, currently used worldwide and awarded with two international prizes: the 2016 Falling Walls Young Innovator of the Year (finalist) and the 2019 BLOXHUB PRIX – Category Excellence (honorary mention). Since 2006, she has conducted professional and scientific advisory work for different stakeholders, including the Berlin City Council, the European Commission Research Executive Agency, the Venice Biennial Foundation, the Italian National Institute of Architecture. Dr. Radicchi was a Rotary International Ambassadorial Scholar at the MIT School of Architecture and Planning in Cambridge, Boston; a Post-Doctoral Marie Curie-Ipodi Fellow at the TU Berlin; and HEAD-Genuit Senior Research Fellow at the TU Berlin and at the New York University in New York. She has received numerous international awards for here research and professional work. She holds a Ph.D. in Urban Design and Territorial Planning, with doctoral studies conducted at MIT (Cambridge, USA) and at the University of Firenze (Italy).

Maribel Salas

Maribel Salas, MD, MSc, DSc, FACP, FISPE is Executive Medical Director and Head of Epidemiology and Cardiovascular Therapeutic Area, Daiichi Sankyo Inc., and Adjunct Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Salas is a medical doctor and epidemiologist with degrees and experience in Medicine, Outcomes Research, Epidemiology, Clinical Epidemiology and Pharmacoepidemiology. Prior to that she held senior positions at Merck, Pfizer, and AstraZeneca. She is an active member of the International Society of Pharmacoepidemiology, supporting the Global Development Committee in Latin American and African regions. She previously served on the faculty of University of Alabama at Birmingham, Department of Preventive Medicine and School of Public Health and has been involved in health outreach to immigrant communities. Dr. Salas is the recipient of federal grants, and author on more than 50 peer reviewed scientific articles.

Erica Walker

Erica Walker, ScD, MS is a Post-Doctoral Fellow at Boston University School of Public Health in Boston, MA. Erica Walker is an exposure assessment scientist and environmental epidemiologist with over 10 years of expertise in the area of environmental noise. She has published, lectured, and testified extensively on the community health impacts of low and high frequency sound. Dr. Walker is also the founder of Noise and the City, a community noise advocacy organization, where she developed The Greater Boston Neighborhood Noise survey, released Greater Boston’s first interactive community noise report, created the NoiseScore smartphone application, and pioneered the nation’s first Neighborhood Noise Report Cards.

Lucy Weinstein

Lucy Weinstein, MD, MPH is Assistant Professor in the Department of Preventive Medicine at SUNY/Stony Brook School of Medicine in Stony Brook, NY. She is a pediatrician and Chair of the Environmental Health Committee, NY Chapter 2 of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). She is Assistant Clinical Professor of Preventive Medicine at SUNY/Stony Brook, and past president of the Nassau Pediatric Society. Her interest in environmental health led her to co-found Huntington CALM and contribute to the MSSNY’s resolution on gas leaf blowers. Dr. Weinstein holds an MD from the Boston University School of Medicine, and a Master’s in Public Health from Columbia University. Her pediatric training was at Case-Western Reserve University Hospitals in Cleveland; her Preventive Medicine residency was at SUNY/Stony Brook.

Gina M. Briggs

Gina M. Briggs, JD, LLM is the founder and executive editor of Silencity.com, an online site focused on the dangers of noise, noise activism, and quiet advocacy. She also operates Quiet City Maps, a site dedicated to helping New York City residents and visitors find quiet restaurants, coffee shops, and other spaces

throughout the city. She was a tax lawyer and tax editor prior to founding her websites and serves on the Legal Advisory Council for Quiet Communities, Inc.

Gina M. Briggs, JD, LLM, Brooklyn, NY. Founder and editor of Silencity.com, a website focused on noise pollution and its impact on health and quality of life. Founder of Quiet City Maps, LLC, a map-based mobile app development company.

Chuck Elkins

Chuck Elkins, JD is a former staff member of the Federal Environmental Protection Agency (25 years) directing nationwide programs on air pollution, pesticides, toxic chemicals, radiation, noise, and stratospheric ozone. Following that, he worked as an environmental consultant (20 years) trying to persuade agencies to make sound policy decisions.

Monica Hammer

Monica Hammer, JD is an environmental public health lawyer who works in health policy development, implementation, and research. She is lead author on a widely cited article on developing an effective response to address the adverse health effects of noise pollution in the United States, including Environmental Noise Pollution in the United States: Developing an Effective Public Health Response, published in the journal, Environmental Health Perspectives in 2014 and “Applying a novel environmental health framework theory (I-ACT) to noise pollution policies in the United States, United Kingdom, and the Netherlands” in the Journal of Environmental Planning and Management in 2017.

Valerie Seiling Jacobs

Valerie Seiling Jacobs, JD, practiced corporate law for more than 20 years before switching to teaching writing at Columbia University and working part-time as a freelance writer and editor. Her essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, the Cornell Law Review, and other publications. Valerie holds a Bachelor of Science and law degree from Cornell University.

John Griffith Johnson, Jr.

John Griffith Johnson, Jr. (Grif) is an attorney. After receiving his law degree in 1976, he worked in various law firms over the next 45 years. He currently serves as counsel to a small law firm in Washington, D.C. that concentrates in the representation of telecommunications and information service providers. Now largely retired, Grif enjoys volunteer work, golf, reading, and spending time with his grandkids. Among his proudest accomplishments in semi-retirement has been his contributions to a successful effort to have the D.C. Council enact legislation outlawing the sale and use of gas-powered leaf blowers in the city starting in 2022. Grif received his law degree from Georgetown University Law School and his undergraduate degree from Princeton University.

Jeanne Kempthorne

Jeanne Kempthorne, JD is a retired lawyer and mediator. She served as a federal and state prosecutor, and was for many years a criminal defense lawyer, concentrating on post-conviction representation. She was a partner in the trial department of the Boston firm, Hill & Barlow, and served as a commissioner on the State Ethics Commission. She served as a court conciliator in Essex Superior Court from 2004-2018, and in 2013 founded Good Neighbor Mediation Project, to address conflict and communication among co-tenants, housing association members, and neighbors. She is most interested in civil rights, dispute resolution, and non-violent communication.

Joel A. Mintz

Joel A. Mintz, JD, LLM, JSD is Professor of Law Emeritus and C. William Trout Senior Fellow in Public Interest Law, Nova Southeastern University College of Law. He is author/co-author of 12 books and numerous book chapters, law review articles, and other pieces; an elected member of the American Law Institute; a life member of the American Law Foundation; and, a Board member at the Center for Progressive Reform and Everglades Law Center. Formerly he served as Attorney, Chief Attorney, and Regional Noise Enforcement Attorney with the US Environmental Protection Agency. His JD is from the NYU School of Law and his LLM and JSD, from Columbia Law School.

Rick Reibstein

Rick Reibstein, JD is an environmental lawyer. He is the former manager of the Massachusetts Toxics Use Reduction program. Prior to that he worked at the US EPA. He was the recipient of the EPA’s Individual Environmental Merit Award in 2000 and received the National Pollution Prevention Roundtable’s Pollution Prevention Champion Award in 2015. He teaches at Boston University and Harvard Extension School and is Chair of the Legal Advisory Council for Quiet Communities, Inc.

Sidney Shapiro

Sidney Shapiro, JD is the Frank U. Fletcher Chair of Administrative Law at Wake Forest University School of Law in Winston-Salem, NC. He is an expert in administrative procedure and regulatory policy who has been a consultant to government agencies, has testified before Congress on regulatory subjects, and is author of numerous books and articles. He is the Vice-President of the Center for Progressive Reform and a public member of the Administrative Conference of the United States.

Steve Taber

Steven Taber, JD is a partner at Leech Tishman, where he leads the firm’s Aviation & Aerospace Industry Group and co-leads the Environmental Group. As a former Federal Aviation Administration attorney, Steve has a vast amount of experience with aviation law and airport development matters. Now, he regularly advises municipalities and community groups on aviation noise and emission matters. Prior to joining the FAA, he was an Assistant Attorney General in the Environmental Enforcement division of the Illinois Attorney General’s Office. He brings a wealth of knowledge to these seemingly disparate areas of practice through his experience as a government attorney, an in-house counsel, and an attorney in private practice.