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Richard Becker Is Awarded 2015 SOT Arnold J. Lehman Award

By Raul Suarez posted 12-30-2014 12:05

  

v22015 SOT Arnold J Lehman Award - Richard Becker.jpgRichard Becker is the recipient of the 2015 SOT Arnold J. Lehman Award. Dr. Becker has significantly contributed to the field of toxicology for over 30 years. During this time, he has been a major driving force for development and application of new technologies and approaches for improving the practice of human health risk assessment. He has consistently been one of the forerunners in support of efforts to move human risk assessment forward scientifically through innovative thinking and principled risk assessment practice.

In particular, his work with colleagues on development of methods for interpretation of chemical biomonitoring data, on hypothesis-driven weight of evidence frameworks for evaluating data for endocrine disruptors, on extending the work of the National Academy of Science from its Science and Decisions report, “Silver Book,” and on enhanced tiered toxicity testing frameworks with triggers for assessing hazards and risks of commodity chemicals, are all important contributions to the debate of scientifically based safety assessment in the US and abroad.

Moreover, Dr. Becker has engaged and educated the scientific community through collaborative symposia that evaluate and review scientific evidence and strategies that enhance communication of chemical assessment information. All of these efforts have led to major progress in the use of new methodologies in health assessments conducted by industry, US federal agencies, and agencies around the world.

He received his PhD in Pharmacology and Toxicology from the University of California, Irvine. After postdoctoral training at the University of Toronto and the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), he spent close to a dozen years as a scientist with the state of California. In 1999, he joined the American Chemistry Council (ACC), and in 2014, was appointed to lead ACC’s Science and Research Division. He now manages ACC’s Long-Range Research Initiative, a program focused on catalyzing innovations in toxicity testing and exposure science in the 21st Century.

Dr. Becker has been a member of the Society of Toxicology since 1990. During this time he has served on the Regulatory Affairs and Legislative Assistance Committee as well as the Congressional Science Fellowship Review Subcommittee.

The Society is pleased to present Dr. Becker with the SOT 2015 Arnold J. Lehman Award.

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