School of Health Sciences - Research in Occupational and Environmental Health Sciences

Dr. James McGlothlin is studying the relationships between ergonomics, epidemiology and industrial hygiene to evaluate and control physical, chemical, and biological hazards in the occupational environment. Dr. McGlothlin develops and administers ergonomic programs to prevent musculoskeletal injuries, promote health, and improve productivity and quality in the workplace. Most recently, he has been working on methods to integrate real-time sampling methods with videography to develop more accurate worker risk assessment profiles and to develop more cost-effective controls.

Dr. Frank Rosenthal studies the lung deposition of inhaled particles as it relates to inhalation toxicology and diagnosis of lung disease. Experimental techniques include pulmonary function testing in animals, aerosol based measures of emphysema and abnormal ventilation, and image-based lung morphometry. These techniques are also used to study mechanisms and therapies for emphysema. Other lines of Dr. Rosenthal's research include: effects of inhaled particles on heart rate variability, methodology for exposure assessment and environmental epidemiology, and health effects of nonionizing radiation.

Dr. Neil Zimmerman is interested in a wide range of topics related to the broad area of Industrial Hygiene, including exposure assessment and sampling strategy issues, ventilation and personal protection equipment control issues, and indoor air quality issues. Current studies include: the development and testing of a number of relatively nontoxic chemicals that can act as antifungal agents when used to treat building materials such as carpet and drywall; the development of a method to utilize a building or home's used furnace filter as a surrogate to predict the average concentration of mold in the air of the ventilated space; investigations into ways to modify furnace filters with activated charcoal to reduce organic vapors involved in indoor air quality problems; the development and validation of a prototype device to allow bioaerosol impactor samplers to operate in high mold concentration areas without overloading; conducting an initial exposure assessment of ultrafine particulates in school buses resulting from diesel engine exhaust.

We have two videos about studying OHS at Purdue that you can watch. One has questions and answers from the faculty, and the other has comments from students.