Following an exhaustive national search, Oregon State University’s College of Agricultural Sciences has named Dr. Jamie DeWitt as the director of the Environmental Health Sciences Center (EHSC).
With a Ph.D. in Environmental Science and Neural Science from Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana, DeWitt brings more than 20 years of experience leading innovative research in environmental toxicology and human health. After obtaining her doctorate, DeWitt received postdoctoral training with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Most recently, she was a professor at the Department of Pharmacology & Toxicology at the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University (ECU). There she led ground-breaking research funded by the Department of Defense, the NIEHS, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, along with numerous state and philanthropic organizations to advance research in immunotoxicology, neurotoxicology, and neuroimmunotoxicology. Fully embracing the school’s educational mission, she also developed a biomedical statistics course and delivered instruction in toxicology, drug safety, pharmacokinetics/pharmacodynamics, and endocrine pharmacology to graduate, medical, and dental student learners.
“We are excited to have Jamie join us and step into this important role with our Environmental and Molecular Toxicology department,” said Staci Simonich, Dean of the College of Agricultural Sciences and Director of the Oregon Agricultural Experiment Station. “Her expertise in toxicology and human health along with her commitment to education will make her a powerful addition to this critical field of study.”
The Environmental Health Sciences Center (EHSC) supports a range of regional activities focused on translational environmental health science research. The Center is hosted by the College of Agricultural Sciences and draws on numerous Oregon State University and partnering institutional resources. A strong presence of the Department of Environmental and Molecular Toxicology supports and integrates many other activities that benefit the center including collaborative research across other centers of research excellence at OSU, including the Superfund Research Center, the Linus Pauling Institute, the Center for Quantitative Life Sciences as well as other academic units across the region.
DeWitt will begin her new role as director of the EHSC in October.