Faculty & Staff

Robert M. Patterson, ScD, CIH
Professor
Director, MS Program in Environmental Health

Dr. Patterson's research, service, and teaching contributions in public health span nearly thirty years. He conducted initial community risk assessments on a dozen industrial air pollutants and developed the methodology for the EPA's models of air pollution from motor vehicles on urban streets. Other work includes large-scale field studies and analyses for major point sources of air pollution, and the design and management of a multimillion-dollar research program on the health effects of electric and magnetic fields. His present research interests in exposure assessment focus on applications of artificial neural networks to exposure characterization and risk analysis.  Dr. Patterson has directed more than thirty-five research projects and has authored or co-authored over seventy-five publications and technical reports. He has co-authored three books, including Radio-Frequency and ELF Electromagnetic Energies: A Handbook for Health Professionals and Assessing EMF in the Work Place: A Guide for Industrial Hygienists. He has also co-authored three book chapters, including "Nonionizing Electromagnetic Energies" in Patty's Industrial Hygiene and Toxicology, Volume 3 - Theory and Rationale of Industrial Hygiene Practice: The Work Environment and "Non-ionizing Radiation" in The Occupational Environment, Its Evaluation and Control.

A member of the Air Pollution Control Board for the City of Philadelphia Department of Public Health, Dr. Patterson has also assisted the Philadelphia Air Management Services in the development of asbestos regulations. He is a current member and past chairman of the ACGIH TLV Committee for Physical Agents, a body that establishes workplace exposure guidelines adopted around the world. He is a former chairman of the AIHA Non-Ionizing Radiation Committee. He has served on the international editorial review board of Applied Occupational and Environmental Hygiene. A Fellow of the American Industrial Hygiene Association, he is certified by the American Board of Industrial Hygiene in Comprehensive Practice. He has also served on the CDC Citizens Advisory Committee on Public Health Service Activities and Research at Department of Energy Sites: Savannah River Site Health Effects Subcommittee.

Education:

Harvard University, School of Public Health, S.M.

Harvard University, School of Public Health, Sc.D.

Research Interests:

Environmental and Occupational Health

Exposure Assessment and Analysis

Environmental Modeling

Health Effects of Non-ionizing Radiation

Recent Publications

T. D. Bracken, R. M. Patterson, T. R. Alldredge, "Assessment Of Compliance With 60-HZ Magnetic-Field Guidelines In The Electric Utility Industry,” Proceedings of the 25th Annual Meeting of the Bioelectromagnetics Society, Maui, Hawaii, June 21-27, 2003.

R. T. Hitchcock, C. E. Moss, W. E. Murray, R. M. Patterson, R. J. Rockwell, Jr., Non-ionizing Radiation, Chapter 22 in The Occupational Environment, Its Evaluation, Control, and Management, AIHA Publications, second edition, 2004.  ISBN 0-932627-82-X

R. M. Patterson, T. D. Bracken, T. R. Alldredge, “Assessing Compliance With 60-Hz Magnetic Field Exposure Guidelines,” Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene, 2:77-85, 2005.

Research Activities

Dr. Patterson is currently working on three topics.  The first is a grant proposal to develop and demonstrate an approach, based on the use of neural networks, to providing analytic expressions for environmental data that are not lognormal (and do not fit other known analytic distributions).  The second is investigating the prevalence and severity of body contact currents and shocks among electrical workers, an exposure analysis prelude to possible health effects studies.  The third is a modeling study of the extent and severity of casualties from accidental or intentional release of chlorine gas from a railroad tank car under different scenarios in a major city, as well as the effectiveness of possibly ameliorating emergency measures.

Dr. Patterson has, in addition,  worked extensively in research on atmospheric transport and diffusion of air pollution, from the microscale to the synoptic scale; and on the health effects of electromagnetic fields, from in vitro to epidemiologic studies