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Home arrow Media arrow News releases arrow ESE news arrow Flack and Thomasen receive 2008-2009 AIHF scholarships

Flack and Thomasen receive 2008-2009 AIHF scholarships

Two ESE doctoral students have been selected as recipients of 2008-2009 American Industrial Hygiene Foundation (AIHF) scholarships.  Jennifer Thomasen (MSPH '07, PhD, Nylander-French Advisor) is the recipient of the highest honor, the American Industrial Hygiene Foundation Scholarship and Sheila Flack (MSPH '06, PhD, Nylander-French Advisor) is the recipient of both the Carolinas Local Section Scholarship and the Fred Venable/Deep South Local Section Scholarship.   A special presentation of the awards was made at the annual AIHF Recognition Reception at the American Industrial Hygiene Conference and Exposition (AIHce),  held on June 2, 2008 in Minneapolis, MN.

The mission of the American Industrial Hygiene Foundation is to advance the profession by awarding scholarships for students in industrial hygiene and related disciplines.   Since 1982, AIHF has distributed more than $900,000 to more than 45 different schools and universities and 356 students. These scholarships have enabled talented students to complete their education and have encouraged the most promising scholars to enter or remain in the industrial hygiene profession. 

Jennifer Thomasen
Jennifer Thomasen
Jennifer Thomasen completed her Master of Science in Public Health studies in December 2007 under the direction of Professor Leena A. Nylander-French.  During her Master's research, she was responsible for the development and validation of techniques to measure inhalation exposures to polyisocyanates using LC-MS instrumentation.  Sheila L.
Sheila Flack
Sheila Flack
Flack completed her Master of Science in Public Health studies in December 2006 also under the direction of Professor Leena A. Nylander-French.  During her Master's research, she developed a strong understanding of the development and testing of monitoring methods for both inhalation and dermal exposures and GC-MS instrumentation.  Her research and writing skills are manifested in the scientific peer-reviewed article based on her Master's technical report published in the Journal of Environmental Monitoring (Flack, S.; Goktepe, I.; Ball, L.M. and Nylander-French, L.A.: Development and evaluation of quantitative monitoring methods for dermal and inhalation exposure to propiconazole. J Environ Monit 10:336-344, 2008).  Flack and Thomasen have continued their doctoral studies in Professor Nylander-French's laboratory. 

For their doctoral research project, Thomasen and Flack, working alongside two other doctoral students, recruited spray painters from North Carolina (15 workers) and in the state of Washington (33 workers) to investigate individual dermal and inhalation exposures to 1,6-hexamethylene diisocyanate (HDI) monomer and oligomers in an occupational environment.  During this project, they determined the breathing-zone exposure to HDI by personal filter sampling, dermal exposure to HDI by noninvasive tape-strip sampling of the stratum corneum, and systemic exposure by measuring the major HDI metabolites HDA and acetylate HDA in blood and urine.  Thomasen has taken the lead in investigating the factors affecting and errors involved in the measurement techniques of breathing-zone concentrations, while Flack leads the analyzing of blood samples by GC-MS and is currently developing statistical models to investigate the correlation between breathing-zone and dermal exposure levels and the biomarker levels in blood.
Last updated June 16, 2008
 
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