We are pleased to invite the campus community and colleagues to Wayne State University’s Integrative Environmental Health Sciences Seminar Series. The series is hosted by Wayne State’s CURES P30ES036084 Environmental Health Sciences Core Center and the CLEAR P42 Superfund Research Program.

Our next seminar will be held on November 21, 2024 from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. in the Integrative Biosciences Center (IBio), located at 6135 Woodward, room 1D. The seminar is also available via Zoom. Zoom details will be emailed to all registrants.

The guest speaker will be Dr. Audrey Gaskins, associate professor of epidemiology at the Emory University Rollins School of Public Health. She will present, “Leveraging Unique Populations to Study Environmental Influences on Fertility.”

Abstract:

In the past decade, exposure to a wide range of environmental toxins such as air pollution have been linked to lower fertility rates worldwide. However, many critical questions remain including which toxins are of primary concern, what exposure windows are the most relevant, what biological mechanisms may be at play, and what the role is of the male partner’s exposures. Couples undergoing assisted reproductive technologies provide a unique opportunity to address many of these research questions in a scientifically rigorous setting. This talk with provide an overview of my research on this topic – largely using air pollution as a motivating example of how we can ask (and start to answer) critical research questions using innovative models of human reproduction.

Biography:

Audrey Gaskins, Sc.D. is an associate professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the Emory University Rollins School of Public Health. She earned her doctoral degree in Nutrition and Epidemiology from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. This training was preceded by a Bachelor’s of Science in Engineering from Duke University. As a reproductive and environmental epidemiologist, Dr. Gaskins’ research uses creative study designs and methodologies to advance the science in the area of environmental, dietary, and lifestyle influences on human reproduction. Her research, which includes over 180 papers, has been cited more than 3,500 times and resulted in many awards including the NIEHS Extramural Science Paper of the Year, the Best New Researcher Award from the International Society of Environmental Epidemiology, the Rising Star Award from the Society of Pediatric and Perinatal Research, and New Investigator Award from the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM). She has been the principal investigator of three research grants from the NIEHS including a K99/R00 on maternal exposure to air pollution and early pregnancy outcomes, an ongoing R01 focused on air pollution and fertility among couples undergoing donor oocyte ART, and an R21 on extreme heat and human reproduction using national ART surveillance data. Dr. Gaskins serves on the executive board of the Nutrition and Environmental Special Interest Groups of ASRM and as Member-at-Large for the Society for Pediatric and Perinatal Epidemiologic Research. She is currently a methodological editor for Fertility & Sterility and on the editorial board for the International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Health.

We hope you are able to join us for this interesting seminar!