CIREEHwiki | Main / Tom Webster

Tom Webster outside the John Snow Pub--a pilgrimage site for environmental epidemiologists--on Broadwick Street in Soho, London on a rainy day. The original pump was located next to the pub in the background on what was then called Broad Street. Note that the replica pump has no handle. If you visit the pub, make sure you sign the visitor's book! To read more about Dr. John Snow, look here. His cholera map of Soho is here. To learn more about the John Snow Society, look here.

Thomas F. Webster, DSc, is Associate Professor of Environmental Health at Boston University School of Public Health. I am Deputy Director and Principal Investigator of Project 2 in the BU Superfund Basic Research Program.

Background
I grew up in the La Mesa/Spring Valley area east of San Diego, CA (Look here for a bit of local public health history). I have a B.S. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a D.Sc. from Boston University School of Public Health. A couple other places I've been associated with include: The Senses Bureau, University of California San Diego; Center for the Biology of Natural Systems (CBNS), Queens College, City University of New York.

My research interests include:

Methodological aspects of environmental epidemiology, particularly issues of spatial epidemiology: disease mapping and clusters, ecologic bias, and the use of combinations of individual- and group-level data.
Exposure routes and health hazards of persistent organic pollutants. I'm currently investigating human exposure to brominated fire retardants (BFRs), particularly polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs).
Interactions of chemicals.
The community context of environmental hazards. Read about the 2006 Boston Consensus Conference on Biomonitoring. How do people feel about participating in a biomonitoring study? Read our new paper.
Ever heard of Dioxin Embalming Fluid or the California Waters of Life? Read about them and other bits of public health history.
Other research interests include applications of mathematical modeling in public health and environmental health aspects of obesity.

News & Awards

18 March 2009: News article by Kellyn Betts, CSI-style tools offer clues about flame retardants in dust discusses our new paper on the use of scanning electron microscopes and other "CSI" tools to investigate PBDEs in dust.
18 February 2009: It is often said that biomonitoring studies can discourage breast feeding, but little research has been done on how participants in such studies actually feel. To find out what we discovered, read our new paper.
3 December 2008: A news article by Kellyn Betts in ES&T discusses decabromodiphenyl ethane (DBDPE), another new flame retardant we found in house dust.
13 October 2008: Press coverage of our time-space analysis of breast cancer on Cape Cod.
22 September 2008: Our multilevel analysis of breast cancer was featured in a National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) press release on spatial epidemiology
13 August 2008: New publication on time-space clustering of breast cancer on Cape Cod, including a cool animation.
23 July 2008: New publication on new and alternative brominated flame retardants in dust, including components of Firemaster 550, a replacement for penta. For more information, look here.
July 2008: Our PBDE work was featured in the Summer 2008 edition of Bostonia magazine
20 May 2008: Doctoral student Greg Howard defends his dissertation on chemical mixtures.
1 May 2008: Work by our PBDE group heavily featured in a news story in Environmental Health Perspectives.
1 May 2008: Doctoral student Lisa Gallagher defends her dissertation on the use of GIS in exposure assessment.
25 April 2008: New publication on multilevel modeling of breast cancer. See publications.
18 April 2008: Our PBDE work featured on Nature Network Boston.
27 March 2008: Three new papers on exposure to PBDEs are in press: on PBDEs in handwipes, measuring PBDEs in dust, linking PBDEs in dust to household products via XRF. See publications.
6 March 2008: Paper on PBDEs by doctoral student Nerissa Wu one of the most cited papers published in ES&T in 2007.
10 December 2007: Doctoral student Joe Allen defended his dissertation.
4 December 2007: Doctoral student Greg Howard presents at the Superfund Basic Research Program annual meeting.
Workshop on ecologic inference 28-30 November
Harry Potter and chemical interactions
5 July 2007: New paper on ecologic bias
21 June 2007: Doctoral student Greg Howard wins a best poster award at Society for Epidemiology Research
13 June 2007: News story "Finding PBDEs in couches and TVs" in ES&T
11 June 2007: Doctoral student Jessica Nelson awarded Switzer Environmental Fellowship
24 May 2007: What do PBDEs have to do with the the cartoon character Pigpen?
27 April 2007: Doctoral student Joseph Allen wins award at BFR 2007
17 January 2007: News story "The risk of PBDEs in dust" in ES&T
11 December 2006: Boston Consensus Conference on Biomonitoring

Publications and Conference Presentations (Includes many full text reprints)

Teaching:

For prospective students

My department, Environmental Health, offers both doctoral and masters degrees.
We have a doctoral training grant in environmental epidemiology.

Links

My official BU site: Tom Webster, D.Sc.

Contact me by email