Jean Grassman

She specializes in studying the sources, detection, and impact of chemical exposure in vulnerable populations with an emphasis on biological monitoring approaches. She joined the CUNY faculty as an Assistant Professor in 1999 and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2004. Prior to coming to CUNY, as a AAAS Policy Fellow, she evaluated the impact of interindividual variability in susceptibility to toxicants. Her laboratory based research includes developing an assay to detect hemoglobin adducts in blood; and studies of the impact of dioxins, fire retardants, and dietary constituents upon signaling pathways in primary and immortalized human cells. As an NIEHS Postdoctoral Fellow, she provided biological monitoring analyses for studies of dioxin exposure in Seveso, Italy; Boehringer Ingelheim, Germany; and among North Carolina residents. Her field work situates workplace concerns within the broader spectrum of environmental and psychosocial stressors with projects focusing on mercury exposure in communities engaged in artisanal gold mining; environmental and occupational factors associated with mosquito-borne illness; and gender-related hazards among young migrant women employed as beer promoters. These projects build on academic and community collaborations in Russia, Canada, Bolivia, Haiti, and southeast Asia. She has written on chemical warfare and is developing a database to better define the continuing impact of Agent Orange in Viet Nam. On the policy level, as a member of the ACGIH Biological Exposure Indices (BEI) Committee, she develops guidelines for using biological monitoring to protect workers. She practices industrial hygiene on behalf of the members of her union and advocates for workplace justice as a member of the NYCOSH Board of Directors. She continues to teach biology-based public health courses to undergraduates at Brooklyn College. At the Graduate School of Public Health she teaches courses in occupational health, emerging environmental issues, and environmental auditing and remediation.