Brenda Eskenazi, Ph.D.

Professor of Maternal & Child Health & Epidemiology, Director, Center for Children’s Environmental Health Research School of Public Health

Brenda Eskenazi, PhD, is the Jennifer and Brian Maxwell Professor of Maternal and Child Health and Epidemiology at the University of California, Berkeley. She is a neuropsychologist and epidemiologist whose long-standing research interest has been the effects of toxicants including lead, solvents, environmental tobacco smoke, dioxin, and pesticides on human reproduction (both male and female) and child development. She is the Principal Investigator (PI) and Director of an NIH/EPA Center for Excellence in Children’s Environmental Health Research and its keystone project “CHAMACOS,” which investigates the exposure pathways and health effects of pesticide exposure in farmworkers and their children and develops interventions to prevent future exposure. She is currently investigating associations between pubertal development and endocrine-disrupting chemicals including flame retardants and pesticides in children of the CHAMACOS cohort. Dr. Eskenazi was also the PI on a grant aimed at understanding the effects of US-Mexico migration on childhood overweight; she conducted research on food insecurity, obesity, and maternal perception of child weight. She is also the Principal Investigator on other NIEHS-funded projects on endocrine disruption: one based in Seveso Italy investigating the reproductive health of a cohort of women exposed to high levels of dioxin which studies the age of onset of menarche among other endpoints, and another examining the effects of persistent and nonpersistent endocrine-disruptors on neurodevelopment. Dr. Eskenazi has just begun the VHEMBE study of the health effects of pyrethroids and DDT to children living in areas of South Africa sprayed for malaria control. Dr. Eskenazi has recently been awarded the LiKaShing award and the John R Goldsmith award for lifetime achievement in environmental epidemiology.