About the Authors

Human Health & Global Climate Change: A Review of Potential Impacts In the United States

Dr. John M. Balbus
Dr. John Balbus is the Director of the Center for Risk Science and Public Health and an associate Professor of Environmental and Occupational Health at the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services. Board certified in both Internal Medicine and Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Dr. Balbus is also appointed in the Departments of Medicine and International Public Health. He received his MPH degree from the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health, his MD degree from the University of Pennsylvania, and his undergraduate degree in biochemistry from Harvard University. Dr. Balbus is the Principal Investigator on a cooperative agreement with the US Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Water, which focuses on a number of issues related to risk assessment for drinking water contaminants. He is also a co-Principal Investigator on a new Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Unit. Dr. Balbus' research interests include risk assessment methodologies for health effects of climate change and waterborne pathogens, and variations in susceptibility to microbial and chemical environmental contaminants. He has served as technical consultant and author for the health sector for both the United Nations Environmental Programme project on global climate change and the United States Country Studies program.

Dr. Mark L. Wilson
Mark L. Wilson is currently Associate Professor of Epidemiology and of Biology at the University of Michigan, where his research and teaching cover the broad area of ecology and epidemiology of infectious diseases. After earning his doctoral degree from Harvard University in 1985, he worked at the Pasteur Institute in Dakar Senegal (1986-90), was on the faculty at the Yale University School of Medicine (1991-96), and then joined the University of Michigan. Dr. Wilson's research addresses the environmental determinants of zoonotic and arthropod-borne diseases, the evolution of vector-host-parasite systems, and the analysis of transmission dynamics. He is an author of more than 90 journal articles, book chapters and research reports, and has served on numerous government advisory groups concerned with environmental change and health. He currently is a member of the National Academy of Sciences panel on "Climate, Ecosystems, Infectious Diseases and Human Health."