Pronouns: he/him/his

Dr. Lehmler is a Professor at the College of Public Health and has served as the EHSRC Director since 2020. Prior to that time, he was the EHSRC Deputy Director. Dr. Lehmler is an experienced environmental health scientist and highly qualified research grant administrator.

In addition to his role as EHSRC Director, Dr. Lehmler is among the leadership team of the Exposure Science Facility and serves as the director of the Career Enhancement Program. He leads a joint seminar series that regularly brings together faculty, staff, and students of the EHSRC and the Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Human Toxicology. Additionally, he oversees the activities of the Water Quality thematic area together with Dr. David Cwiertny.

His NIEHS-funded research employs novel animal models, including germ-free mice and transgenic animals, to characterize how the metabolism of chemical hazards, such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), affects neurotoxic outcomes across the lifespan. These studies bring together investigators from the UC Davis Environmental Health Sciences Core Center, the Center for Exposures, Diseases, Genomics, and Environment (EDGE) at the University of Washington, and the Southwest Environmental Health Sciences Center (SWEHSC) at the University of Arizona.

Dr. Lehmler also serves as Deputy Director of the Iowa Superfund Research Program under the direction of Dr. Keri Hornbuckle. Under this program, Dr. Lehmler leads a Research Project investigating the neurotoxicity of inhaled PCBs in adolescents. This Research Project brings together several EHSRC researchers, including Hanna Stevens and Jonathan Doorn, to study how adolescent exposure to airborne PCBs is mechanistically linked to altered neurodevelopmental outcomes through mitochondrial dysfunction in astrocytes. Dr. Lehmler also leads the Synthesis Core of the Iowa Superfund Research Program and is a member of the leadership team of the Analytical Core.

EHSRC Role(s): Center Deputy Director; Director, Pulmonary Toxicology Facility; Co-Leader, Nanoscience Thematic Area

Dr. Thorne is University of Iowa Distinguished Chair and Professor in the Department of Occupational and Environmental Health. His research interests are in environmental risk factors for inflammatory lung diseases, endotoxin- and glucan-induced immunomodulation, the toxicity of engineered nanomaterials and persistent environmental pollutants, and novel methods for exposure assessment and modeling. Dr. Thorne has served six years as a member of the National Academy of Sciences Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology. In 2017, he became a member of the Academy’s Committee on Toxicology and became Chair in 2020. From 2011 to 2017, he served on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Science Advisory Board (SAB) and served as Chair of the SAB from 2015-2017. He is currently serving a third term on the SAB. Dr. Thorne was a member of the NIH National Advisory Environmental Health Sciences Council from 2003-2007.

In addition to his leadership in the EHSRC and the Pulmonary Toxicology Facility, Dr. Thorne is principal investigator of the AESOP Project (a community-based research study of PCB exposures) and leads research on the toxicity of inhaled PCB mixtures for the Iowa Superfund Research Program. He also is engaged in the development of medical countermeasures to treat respiratory injuries from chemical threat agent. Dr. Thorne is internationally recognized for his discoveries of the exacerbation of asthma and other respiratory diseases associated with domestic and occupational exposures to bioaerosols.  His laboratory collaborates extensively providing exposure assessments for children’s environmental health studies.