SOT is bestowing the 2020 SOT Arnold J. Lehman Award on Annie M. Jarabek in recognition of her major role in transforming chemical risk assessment, especially in enhancing the opportunity for toxicology research to contribute to improved chemical risk assessments.
Ms. Jarabek received her bachelor of science in biology from the University of Notre Dame in 1978. She conducted subsequent graduate work at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center in inhalation toxicology and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in decision analysis. Ms. Jarabek has had a distinguished career with the US Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA), contributing to the Agency’s evaluation of health risks. She began her work at the US EPA in 1986 as an inhalation toxicologist in the Environmental Criteria and Assessment Office in the Office of Research and Development (ORD), later serving as a toxicologist in the National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory. She held many positions within the National Center for Environmental Assessment, first as a toxicologist/risk assessor and later in such roles as Special Assistant to the Associate Director of Health and Deputy National Program Director of the Human Health Risk Assessment Research Program. She currently serves as Senior Science Advisor in the Health and Environmental Effects Division of the Center for Public Health and Environmental Assessment.
The work Ms. Jarabek performed within the US EPA has made her a leading advocate for science-based risk assessment within the Agency. She was the principal author of Agency methods to develop dosimetry models and a strategy for their deployment in risk assessment of inhaled agents. She is a nationally and internationally recognized expert on inhalation dosimetry and risk assessment methodology—including through advocacy for and development of examples of biologically motivated approaches to the risk assessment of inhaled chemicals. She has supported high-priority Agency assessments, including inhaled Libby asbestos, manganese, and particulate matter, and her work leading the risk characterization of ingested perchlorate served as the first example of the use of mode-of-action information to support harmonization of cancer and noncancer risk assessments for a chemical. Manifold additional contributions to risk assessment include developing the derivation of reference concentrations for nearly 100 chemicals, as well as a continued effort to foster the use of state-of-the-art scientific methods in regulatory risk assessments that is now extending to novel in vitro approach methodologies. The influence of Ms. Jarabek’s work extends globally, allowing for more relevant and accurate risk assessments for chemicals.
Among numerous other technical awards and decorations—including best manuscript, abstract, and presentation awards from the SOT Risk Assessment Specialty Section (RASS)—Ms. Jarabek has received Gold, Silver, and seven Bronze Medals from the US EPA, with a bronze most recently bestowed in 2015 for the development of the ORD Strategic Research Action Plan (StRAP) of the Human Health Risk Assessment (HHRA) National Research Program. The Society for Risk Analysis recognized her with its Risk Practitioner of the Year award in 2008, and she received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the University of Massachusetts that same year. An SOT member since 1999, she was the 2004–2005 President of RASS and also is a member of both the Biological Modeling and the Inhalation and Respiratory Specialty Sections, as well as the Women in Toxicology Special Interest Group. She has served on both the Scientific Program Committee and the Awards Committee as well as a strategic communications task force and has organized several Contemporary Concepts in Toxicology meetings. She continues to enjoy organizing and moderating the RASS webinar series.
