Speakers

Dr. Abdellatif Abbaoui is an Assistant Professor of Neuroscience and Principal Investigator in Neuroimmunology at the Faculty of Medical Sciences, Mohammed VI Polytechnic University, Morocco. He is also Visiting Faculty in the Department of Molecular Neuroscience at Osaka University, Japan. His research investigates immune–central nervous system interactions in neurodegenerative and neuroinflammatory disorders, with particular interest in Huntington’s disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. His work focuses on microglia and adaptive immune responses, meningeal immunity and lymphatic function, cerebrospinal-fluid dynamics, and neuroinflammation at the brain’s borders. Using experimental models, immune profiling, imaging, and molecular approaches, his research aims to identify mechanisms and therapeutic opportunities in neurological disease.

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Manish Arora, BDS, MPH, PhD, is the Edith J. Baerwald Professor and Vice Chairman of Environmental Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and Co-Founder and CEO of LinusBio. An environmental epidemiologist and exposure biologist, he directs Mount Sinai’s precision environmental medicine labs and co-founded the Institute for Exposomic Research. His work focuses on how prenatal and early-life exposures influence long-term health, including autism, ALS, cancer, and GI disorders.

Dr. Arora developed the “Biodynamic Interface Theory,” a framework explaining how environmental exposures interact with physiology over time. He pioneered the use of teeth and hair as biomarkers to map early-life exposures, leading to an FDA Breakthrough Designation for an autism biomarker. He is principal investigator on several NIH-funded studies and has received numerous honors, including the PECASE award from President Obama and the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award. His book Environmental Biodynamics was published by Oxford in 2021.

Dinesh Barupal, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Environmental Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Since 2020, He is leading the Integrated Data Science Laboratory for Metabolomics and Exposomics (IDSL.ME). His research focuses on understanding exposome-induced metabolic dys-regulations and their relationships with chronic diseases. His group develops and implements novel computational methods for large-scale metabolomics and exposomics studies with a specialization in metabolic epidemiology, computational metabolomics, metabolic bioinformatics, biomedical text mining and the blood exposome. Dr Barupal is a leading computational biologist and exposure data scientist and over the past decade has developed several bioinformatics methods, including ChemRICH, MetaMapp, IDSL.GOA , the Blood Exposome Database  and the Exposome Correlation and Interpretation Database (ECID) to process and interpret metabolomics and exposomics datasets in the context of human metabolic biochemistry and exposure biology. Dr Barupal received his Doctoral and Post-Doctoral training at the University of California, Davis with Prof. Oliver Fiehn. He was a senior scientist in metabolomics and bioinformatics at the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), World Health Organization in Lyon, France (2012-2015) and the West Coast Metabolomics Center, UC Davis (2016-2020). 

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Fanny Elahi, MD, PhD, is a physician-scientist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, with joint appointments in Neurology and Neuroscience, and secondary appointment in the department of Artificial Intelligence and Human Health. She serves as Director of the Glickenhaus Center for Successful Aging, and is a leader at the NIA-funded Mount Sinai Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center (ADRC), where she co-directs the Biomarkers and Genetics Core and oversees the development of novel blood-based biomarkers for neurodegenerative diseases.

Dr. Elahi’s research bridges molecular and clinical phenotyping to accelerate therapeutic innovations in dementia, with particular emphasis on genetic vascular drivers of disease. Her multidisciplinary program integrates molecular techniques, clinical data, and computational methods to investigate the link between the aging and dysfunction of vasculature with neurodegeneration. A central goal of her work is to develop accessible blood biomarkers and leverage them to uncover disease mechanisms, stratify risk, and identify actionable therapeutic targets.

Dr. Elahi has authored over 80 peer-reviewed publications in leading scientific journals. She previously served as Chair of the Vascular Cognitive Disorders Professional Interest Area of ISTAART, where she led a global network of more than 800 investigators and played a central role in multiple NINDS-funded consortia advancing biomarker development and mechanistic understanding of vascular cognitive impairment and white matter disorders. She currently leads a patient-centered translational program aimed at defining immunovascular mechanisms of cognitive impairment and dementia, supported by DataPhilanthropy and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. She also directs the Davos Alzheimer’s Collaborative Healthcare System Preparedness and Accurate Diagnosis program at Mount Sinai and oversees multiple NIH-supported projects, as well as initiatives funded by the Rainwater Charitable Foundation and Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors. Learn more about Dr. Elahi and her work at elahilab.com.

Dr. Peng Gao is an Assistant Professor of Environmental Health and Exposomics at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. His research focuses on characterizing the human exposome, the totality of environmental exposures and their biological responses, and understanding its role in chronic disease development. Dr. Gao’s lab develops and applies advanced analytical chemistry and computational approaches to measure chemical and biological exposures in environmental and biological samples, integrating these with multi-omics data to investigate disease etiology.

Before joining Harvard, he was an Assistant Professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health and completed his postdoctoral training at Stanford University School of Medicine.

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Itai Kloog, PhD, is an exposure scientist and geographic information system (GIS) specialist, with expertise in exposure assessment, environmental epidemiology, and geo-statistical modeling.  He holds a faculty appointment in the Department of Environmental Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. His research interests include developing exposure models, geo-statistical analysis, GIS and remote sensing, and evaluation of adverse health effects of exposure to air pollution and temperature extremes. He has published multiple articles in recent years on assessing spatio-temporally resolved PM2.5 and air temperature exposures for epidemiological studies. The novelty of some of the approaches Dr. Kloog uses lies in the ability to ensemble novel hybrid satellite-based GIS and geo-statistical methodologies extending the spatiotemporal scale dramatically compared to the state of the art.

Richard K. Kwok, Ph.D., is a Program Director at the National Institute on Aging, where he oversees an extramural research portfolio focused on environmental epidemiology, exposomics, exposure assessment, and Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. Across his career, he has worked to strengthen the scientific infrastructure needed to understand how environmental exposures, social context, and biological susceptibility shape health across the life course. His work emphasizes life course environmental influences on brain health, including chemical and physical exposures, infectious agents, nutrition, physical activity, gene by environment interactions, and the application of omics technologies to clarify disease etiology and inform precision prevention.

Dr. Kwok is an internationally recognized environmental epidemiologist with extensive experience developing large scale population studies, coordinating trans NIH and interagency research initiatives, and advancing disaster research response infrastructure. He has played leadership roles in major efforts related to disaster epidemiology, common data elements, environmental data integration, the All of Us Research Program, the International Common Disease Alliance, and FAIR environmental data resources for patient-centered outcomes research. He was Co-Principal Investigator of the Gulf Long Term Follow Up Study, a large research effort examining the health effects of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

His scientific contributions span exposure science, environmental disasters, cardiovascular and respiratory health, mental health, geospatial methods, data harmonization, and exposomics. He has authored more than 100 peer reviewed publications and has received numerous honors, including Director’s Awards from NIH, NICHD, NIEHS, and NIMHD, as well as multiple NIA Merit Awards.

Dr. Kwok earned his Ph.D. and MSPH in Epidemiology and his BSPH in Environmental Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Jinkook Lee, PhD, is a Research Professor of Economics and Director of the Global Aging, Health, and Policy Program at the Center for Economic and Social Research, University of Southern California. She has spearheaded the development of large-scale, interdisciplinary population surveys, harmonized the data for cross-country and longitudinal analyses, and built accessible infrastructure for data sharing, such as the Gateway to Global Aging Data. She also leads the Gateway Exposome Coordinating Center, which promotes the interdisciplinary study of how environmental exposures over one’s life span influence cognitive health. Her pioneering work in Alzheimer’s Disease and Alzheimer’s Disease Related Dementias  (AD/ADRD) research includes developing the Harmonized Diagnostic Assessment of Dementia for the Longitudinal Aging Study in India(LASI-DAD) — which laid the groundwork for many cognitive aging and dementia studies, particularly in the Global South— as well as innovative research efforts that have deepened understanding of the complex interplay of AD/ADRD risk factors, ranging from biological markers to environmental exposome. She provides scientific advice for the World Health Organization, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the United Nations, the World Bank, and the Asian Development Bank and serves on the editorial boards for several scientific journals. She received a Ph.D. from Ohio State University and a B.S. from Seoul National University and previously held a professorship at Ohio State University and the Pardee RAND Graduate School.

Yue Leng, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and a Senior Atlantic Fellow at the Global Brain Health Institute. She holds an MPhil and PhD in Epidemiology from the University of Cambridge and completed her postdoctoral training at UCSF. Dr. Leng’s research focuses on elucidating the links between sleep, circadian rhythms, and the risk of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, employing epidemiological methods alongside AI and big data analytics. Her research has been funded by NIH K99/R00, R21, and R01 awards and has received widespread media coverage.

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R. Sean Morrison, MD is the Ellen and Howard C. Katz Professor and Chair of the Brookdale Department of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. He also serves as Director of the National Palliative Care Research Center and Co-Director of the Patty and Jay Baker National Palliative Care Center. A past president of the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine, Dr. Morrison is a national leader in aging and serious illness care. He has received over $75 million in research funding and published widely in top medical journals, including the New England Journal of Medicine, Annals of Internal Medicine, and the Journal of the American Medical Association. He has been on the faculty at Mount Sinai since 1995.

Dr. Myriam Mrad is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Balamand, and an environmental and public health expert with more than 18 years of experience in environmental epidemiology, climate change and health, and environmental risk management across the Mediterranean and Middle East. She is Director of the Centre for Health Research (CHR) at the University of Balamand and Co-founder and Executive Director of the Health and Environment Response Agency (HERA).

She serves as Consortium and Country Principal Investigator of the GEOHealth Hub for Climate Change and Health in the MENA Region, an NIH Fogarty-funded international consortium, and as Chair of the Eastern Mediterranean Chapter of the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology (ISEE). Her work focuses on climate-related health risks, air pollution, environmental exposures, climate-resilient healthcare systems, and translating scientific evidence into policy, capacity building, and climate adaptation strategies.

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Shoji Nakayama, MD, PhD, is the Deputy Director of the Japan Environment and Children’s Study (JECS) Programme Office at the National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES). He is a lead exposure scientist for JECS, a landmark longitudinal birth cohort study following 100,000 mothers and children. Dr. Nakayama’s research focuses on human biomonitoring and, most recently, the exposome. To advance children’s environmental health, he collaborates extensively with research institutions across the US, Canada, the EU, and Asia.

Previously, Dr. Nakayama spent six years as an invited researcher at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, investigating contaminants of emerging concern before returning to Japan to join NIES in 2011. He holds adjunct professorships at St. Luke’s International University and the University of Tsukuba, and is certified as a Public Health Specialist/Supervisor by the Japan Board of Public Health and Social Medicine. Additionally, he serves as an Associate Editor for Environment International and the Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology.

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Mohamed Salama is a professor at the American University in Cairo (AUC) and senior fellow for the Global Brain Health Institute (GBHI). He established the Egyptian Network for Neurodegenerative Diseases (ENND) in 2013 and the Egyptian Dementia Registry in 2023 as platforms to study disease determinants.

Currently, he is leading the NIH funded, Egyptian Survey of Healthy Aging (AL-SEHA) to study Egyptian seniors to identify determinants of healthy aging. Additionally, Funded by the Davos Alzheimer’s Collaborative (DAC), Dr. Salama is leading the North African Dementia Registry (NADR). He is also leading the Health and Wellbeing across Lifespan (HWLS) strategic research program within the African Populations Cohorts Consortium (APCC).

Most recently, Mohamed has been a steering committee member to serve the task for   Brain Health in Africa.  a pan-African initiative dedicated to advancing bold, coordinated action on brain health. and building on this, he is also a member of Nature Medicine Commission on Brain Health for Economic Resilience.

Mohamed’s work focuses on studying determinants that can affect brain health across lifespan. Applying this exposome holistic approach on longitudinal cohorts to study external exposure X internal body response that shape brain health. This approach will assure having real time indicators of environment body interactions that can affect brain functions and identify early predictors of brain damage that could appear earlier than clinical signs allowing for early intervention.

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Martha M. (Mara) Téllez Rojo, MSc, DSc, is a Professor at the National Institute of Public Health in Mexico and a member of the National Academy of Medicine. She is Co-Principal Investigator and founder of the ELEMENT (2002) and PROGRESS (2007) birth cohorts, which examine the long-term effects of environmental exposures, social stressors, and lifestyle factors across the life course. She led the development of a population biomonitoring system that informed national lead control policy in Mexico and has served as a model for low- and middle-income countries. In Latin America, she promotes biomonitoring as a tool to address environmental health challenges.  In collaboration with Drs. Elizabeth Roberts and Anita Hardon, she has also introduced the novel concept of Anthroposomics.

Victor Valcour MD, PhD directs the Global Brain Health Institute (GBHI) and the Atlantic Fellows for Equity in Brain Health (AFEBH) training program at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) in the United States. To date, there are over 300 Atlantic Fellows from 70 countries globally, including over 50 in Africa. Dr. Valcour is a Professor of Geriatric Medicine at the Fein Memory and Aging Center within the Department of Neurology at UCSF.  He is internationally recognized for research in how HIV impacts the brain, with research in Southeast Asia, the US, and Africa. Over the past 10 years, he has co-led research on Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias with Atlantic Fellows in Latin America and Africa. Much of this work is creating infrastructure for dementia research in global locations. He also co-leads the Building Research Infrastructure for Dementia Gaps for Equity (BRIDGE) protocol underway across several Africa countries, creating diagnostic tools for dementia.

Dr. Kyle Walsh, Ph.D., is Director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), the world’s premier biomedical research organization focused on environmental health. In addition to leading this NIH institute, he also directs the U.S. National Toxicology Program. In these roles, Dr. Walsh oversees a nearly $1 billion annual budget to advance a broad portfolio of research into how environmental factors influence human health and disease.

Prior to assuming these leadership roles at NIEHS, Dr. Walsh led a pioneering research program at Duke University, studying how genetic, epigenetic, and environmental factors interact to influence brain health, cancer risk, and immune function. At Duke, he served as Associate Professor of Neurosurgery, Pathology, and Pediatrics, and as Director of the Division of Neuro-epidemiology and Co-Leader of the Duke Cancer Institute’s Neuro-Oncology Research Program.

Dr. Walsh holds bachelor’s degrees in both molecular genetics and anthropology from The Ohio State University and earned his Ph.D. in chronic disease epidemiology from the Yale School of Public Health. He completed postdoctoral training at the University of California, San Francisco, where he investigated the causes of childhood leukemia and both childhood and adult brain cancers. He currently resides in North Carolina with his wife and their three daughters.

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Robert Wright, MD, MPH, is a pediatrician, medical toxicologist, and environmental epidemiologist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. He is the Ethel H. Wise Chair of the Department of Environmental Medicine, Co-Director of the Institute for Exposomic Research, and Principal Investigator of an ongoing longitudinal birth cohort in Mexico City (Programming Research in Obesity, Growth, Environment and Social Stress–PROGRESS) in collaboration with the National Institute of Public Health, Mexico. He also founded the MATCH (Metals Assessment Targeting Community Health) study in Tar Creek, Oklahoma. Dr. Wright studies exposomics, chemical mixtures, epigenetics and the role of social stressors as modifiers of chemical toxicity. He has published over 500 research studies and has served on numerous international and national committees and advisory boards. Dr. Wright founded the Senator Frank Lautenberg Laboratory of Environmental Health Sciences at Mount Sinai in 2014 and in 2022 launched the “Exposomic in Precision Medicine” program as part of Mount Sinai’s Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) Program. The program is designed to make the environment an integral part of precision medicine initiatives with the goal of bringing it into clinical training as a tool for optimally determining treatment options and variable individual responses to treatment.

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