Linda S. Birnbaum

Division Director, US EPA

Ph.D. in Microbiology, Biochemistry minor University of Illinois,Urbana, IL.

Specialties: Toxicology, Risk Assessment, Persistent Organic Pollutants

Linda S. Birnbaum, Ph.D., D.A.B.T., A.T.S., is director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), a component of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the National Toxicology Program (NTP), Research Triangle Park, NC. As director of NIEHS, Dr. Birnbaum will oversee a $730 million budget that funds multidisciplinary biomedical research programs, prevention, and intervention efforts that encompass training, education, technology transfer and community outreach. NIEHS is located in Research Triangle Park, adjacent to Durham, Raleigh and Chapel Hill, N.C. The Institute currently supports more than 1,240 research grants.

Prior to her appointment as NIEHS Director, Dr. Birnbaum was a senior advisor at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), where she has served for 16 years as director of the Experimental Toxicology Division.

A native of New Jersey, Dr. Birnbaum earned her M.S. and Ph.D. in microbiology from the University of Illinois, Urbana. She is a board certified toxicologist and has served as a federal scientist for nearly 29 years—the first ten of those at NIEHS—first as a senior staff fellow at the NTP, then as a principal investigator and research microbiologist, and finally as a group leader for the Institute’s Chemical Disposition Group.

Dr. Birnbaum has received numerous awards, including the Women in Toxicology Elsevier Mentoring Award, the Society of Toxicology Public Communications Award, EPA’s Health Science Achievement Award and Diversity Leadership Award, and 12 Science and Technology Achievement Awards, which reflect the recommendations of EPA’s external Science Advisory Board, for specific publications.