Our Exposome Experts: Meet the UC Davis Researchers Advancing Exposome Science
COEH Researchers
At the Center for Occupational and Environmental Health (COEH), exposome research is led by faculty who are advancing the science of how environmental exposures shape human health across the lifespan. Based within COEH and the UC Davis Department of Public Health Sciences, these researchers bring together expertise in epidemiology, data science, community health, and policy to better understand—and ultimately prevent—the health impacts of complex, real-world exposures.
Sindana D. Ilango, Ph.D., M.P.H.
Sindana Ilango is an environmental epidemiologist and Assistant Professor in Public Health Sciences. She is also the Associate Director of the Center for Occupational and Environmental Health. Much of her research examines how climate change and environmental exposures affect health at older ages, with a particular focus on air pollution, cognitive aging, and dementia.
Her work aligns with the exposome framework by studying how environmental and social exposures interact to influence cognitive health. Her current work evaluates how environmental policy and interventions influence environmental exposures and downstream public health outcomes.
Peter James, Sc.D., M.H.S.
As Director of COEH and Associate Professor in Public Health Sciences, Dr. James’s work revolves around how spatial factors (like greenspace, air pollution, noise) influence long-term health. His recent research uses deep-learning algorithms on street-view imagery plus smartphone GPS data to assess people’s exposure to trees, grass, and green space — directly integrating “real-world” environmental exposures (a key exposome concept). As a mentor and educator, he teaches courses on GIS, spatial epidemiology, and exposure assessment.
UC Davis Researchers
COEH’s exposome research is strengthened by close collaboration with faculty across UC Davis. The researchers listed below are based in departments and centers throughout the university and partner with COEH investigators to advance interdisciplinary discovery.
Together, they integrate expertise in environmental health, engineering, air quality science, epidemiology, climate and health, and neurodevelopment to better understand how complex exposures influence health. These collaborations expand the reach and impact of exposome research at UC Davis, fostering innovative approaches to prevention, policy, and community-engaged science.
Deborah Bennett, Ph.D.
Deborah Bennett, PhD is an exposure scientist and Co-Director of the Environmental Exposure Core at the UC Davis Environmental Health Sciences Center. She measures and models chemicals in dust, air, and consumer products, focusing on volatile and semi-volatile organic compounds like flame retardants and pesticides. Bennett’s research clarifies how external exposures enter the body and influence diseases such as asthma and autism, using metrics like intake fraction and characteristic travel distance for exposure assessment.
By quantifying both external exposures and their internal dose potential, Bennett’s work exemplifies specific external and internal exposome approaches—integrating environmental measurement with biomonitoring and epidemiologic outcomes (including associations with neurodevelopment in cohorts like ECHO and CHARGE. This operationalizes the exposome’s goal of capturing total environmental influence on health across life stages. She advocates for protecting children’s health through the non-profit organization Project TENDR.
Kathryn Conlon, Ph.D., M.P.H.
Kathryn Conlon is an environmental epidemiologist and Associate Professor at UC Davis whose research characterizes pathways through which climate-driven exposures—like wildfire smoke, extreme heat, and extreme events—impact human, animal, and environmental health. She integrates exposure assessments with epidemiological and climate models to understand health impacts in vulnerable populations across the life course, as well as identify and assess adaptation strategies.
Conlon’s research aligns with exposome frameworks by integrating spatio-temporal exposure data (e.g., wildfire smoke distributions) with health outcomes and vulnerability metrics, reflecting the holistic exposome goal of assessing external environmental influences across life and climate contexts and linking them to internal biological responses.
Irva Hertz-Picciotto,Ph.D.
Irva Hertz-Picciotto is an environmental epidemiologist and Director of the UC Davis Environmental Health Sciences Center. Her research examines how prenatal and early-life exposures to air pollutants, pesticides, and other environmental hazards such as climate change and resulting wildfires and extreme heat relate to autism and neurodevelopmental outcomes. She leads major cohort studies and integrates diverse environmental exposures to understand their cumulative effects on health across the lifespan.
Hertz-Picciotto’s research fits into exposome frameworks by linking measured external environmental exposures to internal biological responses over the critical windows of early development, reflecting how combined exposures across the life course interact with genetics, nutrition, and physiology to influence health and developmental outcomes. This approach mirrors multidisciplinary exposome strategies in epidemiology.
Sean Raffuse, M.S.
Sean Raffuse is Associate Director of Software and Data at the Air Quality Research Center, developing and applying air quality and smoke exposure models that integrate monitoring, satellite data, and meteorology to generate spatial estimates. Tools like rapidfire estimate PM 2.5 exposures in wildfire scenarios, providing critical data for health impact assessments.
Raffuse’s modeling work helps show what people are actually exposed to in their everyday environments, especially as conditions change over time. By creating detailed maps of air pollution exposure, his research supports studies that connect what people breathe in with how those exposures may affect health.
Rebecca J. Schmidt, Ph.D.
Rebecca J. Schmidt, PhD is a professor and molecular epidemiologist at UC Davis whose research focuses on how prenatal exposures and gene–environment interactions affect maternal and child health, neurodevelopment, and autism. Her work integrates epidemiology, epigenetics, and exposure science to understand how environmental factors during pregnancy and early life shape developmental outcomes.
Schmidt’s research directly advances exposome frameworks by combining detailed external exposure assessment with internal biological signatures. Her Silicon Wristband Exposome and Autism Pilot uses silicone wristbands to passively capture complex chemical mixtures during critical developmental windows, while her metabolomic research helps to identify internal biomarkers of prenatal exposures. Together, these approaches reflect the exposome’s goal of linking cumulative environmental exposures with molecular responses and neurodevelopmental risk across the life course.
Anthony Wexler, Ph.D.
Anthony Wexler, PhD is a Distinguished Professor in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Land, Air and Water Resources and Director of the Air Quality Research Center at UC Davis. An aerosol scientist, his research models and measures how atmospheric particles form, transform, and deposit in human airways. He explores particle dynamics from vehicles, fires, and smog, and the links between particle exposure, health effects, and climate processes, guiding advanced instrumentation and exposure assessment approaches. He develops low-cost instruments so that communities can measure the toxic compounds in the air that they breathe.
Wexler’s research connects to exposome frameworks by quantifying external gas and particle exposures and assessing how these exposures translate into internal burden and potential biological responses—key components in exposomics that consider both environmental exposures and their health effects over the life course.