Mount Sinai Exposomics Leader Named to National Advisory Environmental Health Sciences Council
Robert Wright, MD, MPH, Ethel H. Wise Professor and Chair of the Department of Environmental Medicine and Public Health, and Director of the Institute for Exposomic Research, at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, has been appointed by U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar to serve on the National Advisory Environmental Health Sciences Council.
The council reviews research grant applications assigned to scientific programs of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) and advises the Secretary, the Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Director of the NIEHS on scientific program priorities related to environmental health research.
Dr Wright will serve a four-year term.
“I am excited and honored to serve on the National Advisory Environmental Health Sciences Council. This is an opportunity to make a difference at the highest levels of research affecting environmental health and help NIH set the future agenda of exposomic research,” said Dr. Wright.
Dr Wright studies chemical mixtures, social stressors as a modifier of chemical toxicity, and the role of genetics and epigenetics in modifying or mediating chemical toxicity. He is an international expert and advocate for research on exposomics—the scientific field that measures all health-relevant exposure to environmental substances throughout a person’s lifespan. He has published more than 200 research studies, primarily on environmental health, and has served on numerous international and national committee and advisory boards. Dr. Wright founded and directs the Senator Frank R. Lautenberg Environmental Health Sciences Laboratory at Mount Sinai. He also established the Mount Sinai Transdisciplinary Center on Early Environmental Exposures, an NIH-funded Core Center grant program that provides infrastructure support to Mount Sinai environmental researchers.
He is a graduate of the University of Michigan Medical School, and completed his residency in pediatrics at Northwestern University and fellowships in emergency medicine at Brown University and medical toxicology, environmental epidemiology and genetic epidemiology at Harvard University.
About the Mount Sinai Health System
Mount Sinai Health System is one of the largest academic medical systems in the New York metro area, with 48,000 employees working across eight hospitals, more than 400 outpatient practices, more than 600 research and clinical labs, a school of nursing, and a leading school of medicine and graduate education. Mount Sinai advances health for all people, everywhere, by taking on the most complex health care challenges of our time—discovering and applying new scientific learning and knowledge; developing safer, more effective treatments; educating the next generation of medical leaders and innovators; and supporting local communities by delivering high-quality care to all who need it.
Through the integration of its hospitals, labs, and schools, Mount Sinai offers comprehensive health care solutions from birth through geriatrics, leveraging innovative approaches such as artificial intelligence and informatics while keeping patients’ medical and emotional needs at the center of all treatment. The Health System includes approximately 9,000 primary and specialty care physicians and 11 free-standing joint-venture centers throughout the five boroughs of New York City, Westchester, Long Island, and Florida. Hospitals within the System are consistently ranked by Newsweek’s® “The World’s Best Smart Hospitals, Best in State Hospitals, World Best Hospitals and Best Specialty Hospitals” and by U.S. News & World Report's® “Best Hospitals” and “Best Children’s Hospitals.” The Mount Sinai Hospital is on the U.S. News & World Report® “Best Hospitals” Honor Roll for 2024-2025.
For more information, visit https://www.mountsinai.org or find Mount Sinai on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.