Matthew Campen, PhD, MSPH is a Regents’ Professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences in the College of Pharmacy at UNM. He has authored over 100 peer reviewed publications in the area of air pollution health effects. Dr. Campen directs the new NIGMS-funded New Mexico Center for Metals in Biology and Medicine, and is the co-Director of the UNM Clinical and Translational Science Center. He received his PhD from the University of North Carolina School of Public Health, and conducted a postdoctoral fellowship at Johns Hopkins in Pulmonary Physiology. He has been an SOT member since 2002

His laboratory is broadly interested in the biological mechanisms underlying the systemic vascular impacts of inhaled toxicants, including wildfire smoke, microplastics, ozone, and e-cigarette aerosols (R01ES014639, R01ES026673, R01AG070776). Past research has focused on inhaled particulates indirect toxicity to coronary vessels and the cerebrovasculature, highlighting impaired barrier function leading to neuroinflammation, especially in advanced aging models.  His newest direction involves examining how shed peptide fragments from the lung after air pollution exposure can impair placentogenesis and promote gestational hypertension.  The bulk of his experience is in environmental health, studying the effects of complex inhaled pollutant mixtures on respiratory, cardiac and vascular outcomes, with an emphasis on in vivo models of inhalation exposure and linking to molecular mechanisms, as well as to clinical and community outcomes.