Research and Practice

Geyh-Bouwer Trainee Practice Award

The Geyh-Bouwer Trainee Practice Award recognizes students whose application of science demonstrates the betterment of the environment and/or public health. Students participate in activities such as program evaluation and monitoring, public health surveillance, program development, risk assessments and analysis, development of policy briefs, public health translation, communication, and advocacy, contributions to public policy, and the development of engineering technologies. 

Ed Bouwer, PhD

Ed Bouwer was the head of two Johns Hopkins University-based research centers, chair of the Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering, and a pivotal contributor over more than three decades to National Academies of Science and Engineering committees and reports. His creativity and insight into management and policy is evident from the professional trajectories of his students and his co-authorship with Eric Rifkin of the book "The Illusion of Certainty: Health Benefits and Risks." Ed was active in engineering consulting.

Ed was educated and trained in civil, nuclear, and environmental engineering. The launching point for his participation in projects was often technical: concepts and tools relevant to water supply and wastewater treatment, hazardous waste, contaminated surface waters, soils, and sediments. He was committed to translating technical information into management and policy, and to communicating with a wide audience. For many years Ed was a visiting science teacher in Baltimore City elementary schools. He spent more than a decade volunteering as an assistant scoutmaster and unit commissioner. All these endeavors arose from Ed's commitment to fostering future generations and raising the levels of care and discourse within the broader community.

Alison Geyh, PhD

Alison Geyh joined the Department of Environmental Health Sciences in 2000 and built an international reputation with her work on air pollution, in which she applied her skills as a chemist to study the impact of air pollution on health. Geyh was widely known for her research on the health of cleanup workers at the site of the September 11, 2001, World Trade Center attack.

Geyh was one of the first health researchers at the site, where she worked with a team of her students. Worried about how the air pollution would affect workers involved with the cleanup, she and colleagues collaborated with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters to conduct an extensive air quality and health assessment of truck drivers at the site. Her research findings, along with results from other studies, provide a strong justification for ongoing medical monitoring of cleanup workers, as was discussed in a 2007 New England Journal of Medicine article co-authored by Geyh. She was a principal investigator on a large EPA-funded research program to evaluate how the chemical composition of particulate matter air pollution can impact human health.

2024 Geyh-Bouwer Award Winners

Ryan Hines, MS '21, PhD candidate, partnered with the American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA) to advance the translation of occupational exposure assessments to improve worker health. He developed and co-instructed a professional development course at the AIHA National Conference and has played a key role in updating and aligning content for the association’s Occupational Exposure Assessment Certificate program that provides industrial hygiene professionals with the basic knowledge to conduct occupational exposure assessments.

Nakyeong Yun, PhD candidate, designed an energy-efficient carbon dioxide sequestration technology that can be rapidly deployed and integrated into the existing water and wastewater infrastructure to reduce community-level carbon dioxide emissions. Nakyeong has partnered with the Maryland Department of Environmental Services and an industrial wastewater treatment facility to successfully test and implement this technology in existing plant infrastructure.

2023 Geyh-Bouwer Award Winners

Dylan Gaeta, PhD '23, was recognized for working with the Baltimore Office of Sustainability and Prof. Scot Miller’s research group to produce a Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions Inventory and technical report for the City of Baltimore. This work follows a standard global protocol for accounting and reporting emissions of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide from cities, and has served to satisfy numerous GHG emissions reporting requirements for the City of Baltimore. The GHG Emissions Inventory has also been used to aid the development of the city’s updated Climate Action Plan (2023), which sets ambitious new GHG emissions reductions targets for Baltimore, including a goal of carbon neutrality (net-zero GHG emissions) by 2045.

Elsie Moore, PhD candidate, was recognized for her work helping to establish and facilitate a Food System Resilience Community of Practice (CoP) with representatives from five cities in the United States. Elsie worked with the CoP to co-develop a resource that helps local governments prepare for, respond to, and recover from food system disruptions.

2022 Geyh-Bouwer Award Winners

Caitlin Ceryes, PhD ‘22, was recognized for founding and managing the Overlea Farmer's Market in my neighborhood, in various capacities, for the past 6 years. This is a grant-supported market focused on providing healthy foods and opportunities for learning about the food system and environment and strengthening community cohesion. They are in their seventh year of operation.

David Harvey, MPH ‘07, a DrPH candidate, was recognized for helping the Navajo Nation reduce barriers to accessing safe water for homes not connected to a pipe water system during the COVID-19 pandemic. He is a commissioned corps officer of the United States Public Health Service, assigned to the Indian Health Service within the Department of Health and Human Services.

Krittika Negandhi, BS '22, was recognized for creating a detailed greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) inventory for the city of Baltimore for the year 2020. The objective was to track Baltimore's progress toward meeting its emissions reduction targets, and to investigate the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on these emissions. The 2020 inventory is still in progress, but Krittika helped create the finished 2017 inventory, which can be found on the Baltimore Office of Sustainability. She also led the effort to automate the calculation of GHG emissions for the past 10 years in an interactive, user-friendly spreadsheet.

Melissa Seaton-Edmondson, PhD '22, led a team of 12 CDC/NIOSH professionals in the development of two high impact and widely used personal protective equipment (PPE) management tools — the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Burn Rate Calculator and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) PPE Tracker app. The purpose was to develop a simple-to-use tool to assist small facilities that lack adequate PPE management systems in tracking their PPE consumption rate during the COVID-19 pandemic. These developments represent important contributions to the CDC COVID-19 Response and have been incorporated into best practices for healthcare and non-healthcare facilities that manage PPE.