The Awards Committee is pleased to announce that Dr. Linda Birnbaum is the recipient of the 2017 Distinguished Scientist Award in Toxicology. If you are attending the Annual Meeting, we invite you to join the College for the Awards Ceremony and Luncheon on Monday, November 6 from 12:00 noon–2:00 pm. Dr. Birnbaum will be the keynote speaker, and the 2017 recipients of the Service Award, Early Career Professional Award, Carol C. Lemire Unsung Hero Award, Student Travel Awards, Student Furst Award, the President’s Award for Best Paper Published in International Journal of Toxicology, the North American Graduate Fellowships, and the International Travel Grants will be announced. ACT is delighted to celebrate the accomplishments of the recipients of each of these awards.
Linda S. Birnbaum, PhD, DABT, ATS, is the director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences of the National Institutes of Health and director of the National Toxicology Program.
A board-certified toxicologist, Birnbaum has served as a federal scientist for over 37 years. Dr. Birnbaum has received many awards and recognitions, including the North Carolina Award in Science, Women in Toxicology Elsevier Mentoring Award, the Society of Toxicology Public Communications Award, EPA’s Health Science Achievement Award and Diversity Leadership Award, the National Center for Women’s 2012 Health Policy Hero Award, Breast Cancer Fund Heroes Award, and 14 Science and Technology Achievement Awards, which reflect the recommendations of EPA’s external Science Advisory Board, for specific publications. Dr. Birnbaum was also elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies, and received an honorary degree from Ben-Gurion University in Israel.
Dr. Birnbaum is a former president of the Society of Toxicology, the largest professional organization of toxicologists in the world, former chair of the Division of Toxicology at the American Society of Pharmacology and Therapeutics, and former vice president of the American Aging Association. She is the author of more than 800 peer-reviewed publications, book chapters, and reports. She is also an adjunct professor at several universities, including the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University.
A native of New Jersey, Dr. Birnbaum received her MS and PhD in microbiology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.