Keynote speakers

Professor of Occupational & Environmental Medicine, Director of Research at National Heart & Lung Institute and President’s Envoy for Health, Imperial College London.

He was Principal of the Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College, between 2010 and 2012. Between 1977 and 2010, he was consultant physician at Royal Brompton Harefield NHS Trust, and appointed Deputy Chief Executive.

Currently, Sir Anthony is chairman of the Workplace Health Expert Committee, an expert scientific advisory group for HSE, chairman of the Independent Medical Expert Group of the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme, chairman of the Colt Foundation and a trustee of the Rayne Foundation.

Noah Seixas is Professor of Exposure Sciences at the University of Washington, School of Public Health.  Dr. Seixas received an MS in Industrial Hygiene at Harvard School of Public Health in 1982.  After working for public health agencies in New Jersey for four years, Dr. Seixas returned to school at the University of Michigan, earning a PhD in Industrial Health in 1990, writing a dissertation on obstructive lung disease among coal miners and exploiting the large exposure database on coal dust exposures from the Mine Safety and Health Administration compliance activities.  These activities were part of the growing recognition of exposure assessment as a crucial component of effective occupational epidemiology.  Dr. Seixas was appointed Assistant Professor at the University of Washington in 1993 where he developed a teaching and research program on exposure assessment techniques, studying silica, noise, organic dusts and welding fume, among other risks, as part of several epidemiologic studies. In recent years, he has redirected his focus to address the needs of immigrant, minority and women workers, and exploring the future of occupational health research and practice with respect to work organization and precarious work.  In 2013 Dr. Seixas was appointed as the Chief Editor of the Annals of Occupational Hygiene, recently renamed the Annals of Work Exposures and Health.  He also serves as Director of the Northwest Center for Occupational Health and Safety, serving the Pacific Northwest region of the US.  

Associate Professor Deborah Glass MA, Cert Ed, MSc, PhD, Dip Occ Hyg, FAIOH COH graduated from Cambridge University, obtained a Masters in Occupational Health and Hygiene and worked in industry as an occupational hygienist, a consultant occupational hygienist, and a lecturer in Occupational Hygiene at Birmingham University. Debbie went to Australia in 1995 and worked on the Health Watch petroleum industry cohort completing a PhD with Deakin University based on this work.Debbie joined Monash University in 1998 and works in the field of exposure assessment for epidemiology, including benzene and LH cancer risk, and of cancer and mortality in firefighters.

Debbie is a member of the AIOH, on the Editorial Board of the Annals of Work exposures and Health, the Cancer Council of Australia occupational cancer working party and is on the ACGIH TLV committee.

Professor Manolis Kogevinas is Head of the Cancer Programme of the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal). He graduated at the Medical School of Athens, Greece and did his PhD in Epidemiology at the University of London (1989). He worked at IARC/WHO, Lyon and was co-Director of the Centre for Research in Environmental Epidemiology (CREAL) in Barcelona, Spain. His research focuses on the evaluation of occupational, environmental and genetic factors in relation to cancer, respiratory diseases and child health. He served in several WHO and other expert committees evaluating the toxicity of chemicals and in EU evaluation committees. He has published more than 500 scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals. He is the President of the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology and has organized the 2002 and 2016 EPICOH conferences.

Debbie is Professor of Epidemiology at the University of Bristol. Her main areas of expertise are in the life course and genetic epidemiology of cardiovascular disease, insulin resistance and diabetes. Debbie has a medical background, two MSc (one in Public Health and one in Statistics) and a PhD in epidemiology. Debbie is active in communicating research results in the areas of diabetes and heart disease to members of the public and using all forms of the media to effectively promote public health messages.

Anthony is Emeritus Professor at the University of Aberdeen and developed research into the early origins of asthma, cardiac effects of air pollution and neurotoxic effects of chemicals, especially their influence on the development of Parkinson's disease. As former Chief Executive of the Institute of Occupational Medicine, Anthony remains an Honorary Senior Consultant and has interests in the investigation of the neural consequences of exposures to organic solvents and in particular with a view to determining the influence of maternal diet and other factors on the risks of asthma and allergies and related aspects of indoor air quality.

David Coggon is Emeritus Professor of Occupational and Environmental Medicine at the MRC Lifecourse Epidemiology Unit, University of Southampton, UK. His career has combined clinical work as an occupational physician with more than 40 years of epidemiological research, focusing principally on the inter-relationship of health and work and on environmental causes of disease.  This has included demonstration of a hazard of infectious lobar pneumonia in workers exposed to metal fume, of hip osteoarthritis in farmers, and of knee osteoarthritis and meniscal tear from occupational kneeling.  Other research interests have included occupational causes of cancer, chronic respiratory disease and various skin disorders.  Recently, he has focused particularly on musculoskeletal disorders of the back and upper limb.  He was President of the UK Faculty of Occupational Medicine from 2008-11, and has served on multiple scientific advisory committees to government, both in the UK and internationally, including as chairman of the Advisory Committee on Pesticides, the Committee on Toxicity of Chemicals in Food, Consumer Products and the Environment, and the Depleted Uranium Oversight Board.