The Lifeline Group

Our Staff

Claire A. Franklin, Ph.D., President
e-mail:cafranklin@thelifelinegroup.org

Dr. Claire Franklin is a Director in The LifeLine Group™ and a senior member of LifeLine Group's management team. Dr. Franklin participates in exposure and risk assessment projects relating to consumer products, food, industrial and environmental chemicals. She is instrumental in developing the scientific foundations for those projects.

Dr. Franklin holds a doctorate in physiology and has had a distinguished career at Health Canada. From 1989 to 1995, Dr. Franklin was Director, of the Bureau of Human Prescription Drugs and in 1995, became the Executive Director of the then newly created Pest Management Regulatory Agency. She has extensive experience in international activities related to the regulation of a wide range of chemicals and consumer products.

Dr. Franklin is a recognized leader in the fields of exposure and risk assessment and recipient of numerous awards technical achievement and public service. These include Food and Drug Administration, Department of Health and Human Services, U.S.A. Commissioners Special Citation; the best paper in Toxicological Science (1999) awarded by the Board of Publication of the Society of Toxicology 2003; and the Outstanding Achievement Award for the Public Service of Canada. This award is the highest honor in the Public Service in Canada and was presented by the Governor General of Canada and the Prime Minister.

Dr Franklin's publications include more than 80 peer-reviewed publications and book chapters. She has been the editor of five books including the "Occupational, Residential and Bystander Exposure Assessment for Pesticides" which was published in January of 2005. Dr. Franklin is a Research Fellow at the McLaughlin Centre for Population Health Risk Assessment, University of Ottawa.

Christine A. Chaisson, Ph.D., Secretary-Treasurer
e-mail:cfchaisson@thelifelinegroup.org

Dr. Christine F. Chaisson is a Director in The LifeLine Group™ and a senior member of the LifeLine Group's management team. She is one of three key architects of the new generation of exposure assessment models addressing aggregate and cumulative risk concepts, called LifeLineT. Her special focus on these models has been in the dietary sections-agriculture, food technology, food consumption and food composition.

Dr. Chaisson earned a doctorate from George Washington University. She began her career in risk assessment in the US Environmental Protection Agency in the Office of Pesticides and Toxic Substances. At EPA Dr. Chaisson designed and created the first dietary exposure assessment model. She was also the liaison to international regulatory agencies such as AID and WHO. In 1985, Dr. Chaisson co-founded Technical Assessment Systems (TAS), which became the premier exposure/risk assessment consulting firm internationally. Through TAS, she introduced concepts such as population subgroup specificity, better definition of residues in forms of foods and sources of drinking water, use of human activity patterns and actual chemical usage patterns for more accuracy and relevance in risk assessment models. Through these experiences, Dr. Chaisson has become well versed in the expectations of regulators in the US, UK, Canada, Germany and European Union.

Over the past five years, Dr. Chaisson has collaborated with colleagues to create the most advanced exposure and risk assessment software for considering multiple sources of exposure from one or multiple chemicals over the lifetime (aggregate and cumulative assessment). This model, LifeLineT, is now in use in the US and Canada for pesticide regulatory risk assessment, as well as in a dozen universities as a tool for teaching risk assessment.

The LifeLineT models' architecture are readily customized for specialty applications such as providing individual-specific exposure metrics to pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic models which better reflect actual dose/effect relationships. Human physiological and morphometric parameters useful as a component of such models were developed by The LifeLine Group™ as part of a research project with the American Chemical Council. Other important projects include the careful examination of nutrition studies and food intake studies to better understand the relationships between dietary profiles (or other personal habits) and health status, especially obesity.

Dr. Chaisson is a Councillor in the International Society of Exposure Assessment, a member of Society of Risk Assessment, the United Agribusiness League and the Institute of Food Technologists. She also serves on the National Council for Arts and Sciences of the George Washington University and the Dean's Advisory Board for the GWU Graduate School of Political Management. She is an advisor to Food Quality magazine. She has published extensively in the fields of exposure and risk assessment.

Michael A. Jayjock, Ph.D., CIH
e-mail:mjayjock@thelifelinegroup.org

Dr. Michael A. Jayjock is a senior member of LifeLine Group's management team. Prior to joining LLG, he was the Senior Research and EHS Fellow and Manager, Risk Assessment, in the Toxicology Department of Rohm and Haas Company, where he has served in various technical positions since 1969. He has a Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering from Drexel University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he also received his Master of Science degree in Environmental Science and Occupational Health. Dr. Jayjock is a Fellow of the American Industrial Hygiene Association and Diplomat of the American Board of Industrial Hygiene (CIH). He has served on various committees of the American Industrial Hygiene Association: Committee on Exposure Assessment Strategies, Exposure Strategies Modeling Subcommittee, Exposure Strategies Expert System Subcommittee, Committee on Risk Assessment, and Low-Dose Estimation Task Group.

Dr. Jayjock's principal research interest includes the development of better-estimating and more cost-efficient exposure models. He has expertise in such areas as exposure modeling and human exposure to environmental pollutants, human health risk assessment, and uncertainty analysis.

He has published extensively in peer-reviewed publications and served from 1998-2003 as an Editorial Board Member for the American Industrial Hygiene Journal. He has made numerous technical presentations, including at the American Industrial Hygiene Conference, International Society of Exposure Assessment Conference, and the Air Toxics Monitoring Workshop to Support EPA's Integrated Urban Air Toxics Strategy. His wide service on advisory committees includes: U.S. EPA - Office of Pollution Prevention & Toxics - Voluntary Children's Chemical Evaluation Program (VCCEP); Peer Consultation Panel on Flame Retardants, 2003; U.S. EPA Science Advisory Board, Executive Committee, Human Health Research Strategy Panel, November 2002; U.S. EPA Science Advisory Board Consultant 2001-2003 - Integrated Human Exposure Committee; U.S. EPA Science Advisory Board Member 1998-2001 - Integrated Human Exposure Committee (IHEC); and National Research Council - National Academy of Sciences, as a Member of the Committee to Review Risk Management in the DOE's Environmental Remediation Program, the Committee on Advances in Assessing Human Exposure to Airborne Pollutants, and the Committee on Toxicology - Subcommittee on Risk Assessment of Flame-Retardant Chemicals.

Susan F. Arnold MSOH, CIH
e-mail:sarnold@thelifelinegroup.org

Ms. Susan Arnold is a member of the LifeLine Group's management team. She has an extensive background in modeling exposures in the workplace. Prior to joining LLG, she developed, conducted, and managed exposure assessment and mathematical modeling projects for a number of industries. As an industrial hygienist she has provided comprehensive industrial hygiene services to a number of clients.

Ms. Arnold received her Bachelor of Science degree in Biomedical Toxicology from University of Guelph, Guelph, Canada and a Masters degree in Occupational Health-Industrial Hygiene from the Medical University of Toledo at Ohio. She is a Diplomat of the American Board of Industrial Hygiene (CIH).

Ms. Arnold has served on various committees of the American Industrial Hygiene Association, and she is incoming chair of the Exposure Assessment StrategiesCommittee, and is past chair of the Exposure Modeling Subcommittee,Exposure Assessment Strategies Committee of the American Industrial Hygiene Association.

Ms. Arnold was a contributing author to the publication, “Assessing and Managing Occupational Exposure to Chemicals - A User's Guide”. She has madenumerous technical presentations at the American Industrial Hygiene Conference and AIHA local section conferences and recently taught a short course at the ISEE/ISEA Meeting in Paris, France.

John Young, Ph.D.
e-mail:jyoung@thelifelinegroup.org

Dr. Young is a Director in The LifeLine Group™ and was one of three principal scientists involved in the development of the LifeLine software while he was at The Hampshire Research Institute and Hampshire Research Associates. Dr. Young was President of HRI/HRA, where he served as primary technical and managerial contact with sponsors. He conducted research, managing projects from initial proposal to final deliverable. Prior to this he was the major architect of Risk*Assistant software.

Dr. Young sits on the National Research Council, U.S. National Academy of Sciences, Committee on Source Removal of Contaminants in the Subsurface, which is charged with examining options for remediation of military bases, on the basis of expertise in risk assessment. In addition, Dr. Young has served on a number of committees and advisory groups including Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Society for Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) and the US Environmental Protection Agency.

From 1984 to 1986 Dr. Young was a research associate at Johns Hopkins University where he conducted research on health effects of chemicals with potential for environmental release and/or occupational exposure.

Dr. Young held a Postdoctoral Fellowship in Neurobehavioral Toxicology, Division of Toxicology, Department of Environmental Health Sciences, School of Hygiene and Public Health and has a B.S., Summa cum Laude, in Psychology from Georgetown University and PhD in Psychology from Brown University

Francis (Bart) Suhre, M Sc
e-mail:bsuhre@thelifelinegroup.org

Mr. Francis (Bart) Suhre is a senior scientist with The LifeLine Group™. Mr. Suhre participates in database and exposure project management relating to consumer products, food, industrial and environmental chemicals for The LifeLine Group™.

Mr. Suhre holds a Masters Degree in Chemistry and has had a distinguished 20 year career at the US Environmental Protection Agency. From 2002 to 2005, Mr. Suhre was Chief of the Chemistry and Exposure Branch, Health Effects Division, Office of Pesticide Programs. Mr. Suhre is a recognized leader in the fields of pesticides and risk assessments and recipient of numerous awards in the public service.

Mr. Suhre began his government career in 1972, reviewing human drug petitions, at the Food and Drug Administration, Bureau of Drugs, After leaving FDA and prior to joining EPA, Mr. Suhre worked as an analytical chemist with the USDA, Food Safety Inspection Service, where he developed analytical methods to assay veterinary drug and pesticide residues in meat and poultry products

Eric Mathis, M Sc
e-mail:emathis@thelifelinegroup.org

Mr. Eric T. Mathis is a Product Engineer with The LifeLine Group™ where he participates in a team that is continuing the development of the Lifeline model in Visual C++. Lifeline is a software tool used to determine aggregate and cumulative exposures from pesticide and non-pesticide use. It is based on a form of Monte Carlo analysis called Microexposure Event Analysis.

Mr. Mathis has a Master of Science degree from the University of Alabama Tuscaloosa, Alabama in Geography in which his concentration was on Geographic Information Systems. He got his B Sc from Samford University, Birmingham, Alabama.

While working at AMEC Earth and Environmental, Portland, Maine he developed the PhRMA Risk Model using Visual C++. It allows representatives of the PhRMA companies to input their chemical data, and the model then will track the chemical as it flows along a watershed. It will measure exposure along multiple pathways and produce usable output of watershed segment concentrations, drinking water source concentrations, and allowable doses (PNEC) for multiple receptors.. He also developed a two-dimensional microexposure event model for General Electric and participated in a team that refined the Microexposure Event Model (MEE) for performing probabilistic risk assessments from the ingestion of fish from contaminated water bodies. The model concurrently quantifies uncertainty and variability in the risk estimates. The current model version was developed using the Visual C++ platform, and uses MS-Access files to store input and output data. This MEE has also been modified for the Penobscot River in central Maine and Fox River in Wisconsin.

Mr. Mathis has experience as a Project Manager through his work at Allenbrook, in Portland, Maine where he is the team leader for a development group responsible for writing custom programs for American Family Insurance Company, a 3 billion-dollar industry leader. He manages work and development cycle for 4 developers and 2 quality assurance testers to ensure quality and timely releases to the client.

Mr. Mathis has extensive experience in the use of the Visual C++ development language for creation and modification of business objects used for insurance processing and has performed architecture and design for an enterprise-wide Oracle relational database base supporting 15,000+ users in multiple remote offices. He has created custom geographic information system applications and data sets for various clients including an ESRI ARC/INFO geographic information system that involved studying changes in land use over a 30-year period and its effect on the bird population.

Douglas Tedder, B Sc
e-mail:dtedder@thelifelinegroup.org

Mr. Douglas R. Tedder is a Product Engineer with The LifeLine Group™ and is an integral part of a development team engaged in the support and enhancement of the LifeLine Model. He has a Bachelor of Science Management Information Systems with a computer science minor from The Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL.

Through his work at AMEC Earth and Environmental in Portland, ME, he gained experience in design and development of an application to model the concentration of chemicals within a watershed. The model tracks the chemical loading of river systems from POTWs, the transport of chemicals through segments of the river system based on GIS data, and evaluates the concentration both at DWS intake and post-DWS processing. The model includes flexible mechanisms for adding loss terms at the POTW, in stream, and DWS intake. Risks are evaluated based on comparisons of the chemical data provided to the calculated concentrations for both water intake and fish concentrations. Flexible output mechanisms, including reports and graphs allow the user easy access to the results of the analysis. The model was developed in Microsoft Visual C++ using Microsoft Access for data storage.

He has also participated in a team to develop a two-dimensional micro-exposure event model for performing probabilistic risk assessments from the ingestion of fish from contaminated water bodies. The model concurrently quantifies uncertainty and variability in the risk estimates. The model was designed for use by GE on the Hudson River, but was purposely created to be flexible and extendible. It has subsequently been used to model both the Fox River for the Fox River Group and the Penobscot River on behalf of Mallinkrodt with little modification required. The model was built using Microsoft Visual C++ using Microsoft Access for data storage.

Mr. Tedder has experience as a Product Architect and has managed a team of developers tasked with responding to critical issues for over 50 clients. Critical issues were defined as those that impeded the client's ability to conduct business. This included changes to any and all aspects of the program as well as extensive work with data manipulation on Oracle and SQL Server databases. He has developed web-based solutions based on XML, HTML, and back-end COM objects.

Mr. Tedder is a Microsoft Certified Solution Developer with expertise in Windows Open Systems and Services Architecture (OLE, ODBC), Microsoft Visual Basic, Microsoft Access and he is a Microsoft Certified Professional with expertise in Analyzing Requirements and Defining Solution Architectures.

Annie Blouin Chaisson M.P.H., R.D.
e-mail:amchaisson@thelifelinegroup.org

Ms Blouin Chaisson is a nutritionist and registered dietician with The LifeLine Group. Her focus has been to develop the Dietary Record Generator which will be used in the Tribal LifeLine Model. She spent 6 weeks in Alaska where she visited and worked with Alaskan tribal communities, attended the 2006 Alaska Native Health Research Conference, focused on health research issues specific to Alaska, and worked closely with Alaska Natives, risk assessors, health and wildlife researchers, and fellow nutritionists

Ms. Blouin Chaisson has a degree in Kinesiology and Psychology from the College of William and Mary. After teaching in Guatemala for a year, she returned to the United States to attend the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, School of Public Health. During her time in graduate school she worked extensively with mothers and children served by the Women, Infants, and Children Program (WIC) in both North Carolina and Virginia. As a graduate student, she spent one year as a laboratory assistant, worked on a nutrition and pregnancy study administering multiple 24-hour recalls, and maintained contact with Spanish-speaking populations through volunteering with a non-profit serving the health needs of rural Latino communities in North Carolina.

After completing her Master in Public Health in human nutrition in 2004, she completed a clinical internship in dietetics in order to obtain her registration as a dietician (R.D.). She practiced as a clinical dietician at the University of Virginia Medical Center. Her practice area included nutrition needs before and after solid organ transplant surgery, nutrition needs in adults living with Cystic Fibrosis, high risk pregnancy nutrition counseling, and nutrition counseling for families and children affected by genetic disorders and/or congenital defects.

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