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Conrad Dan Volz - Biography

Dr. Volz is an Assistant Professor of Environmental and Occupational Health (EOH) at the Graduate School of Public Health (GSPH), University of Pittsburgh, Co-Director for Exposure Assessment, The University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, Center for Environmental Oncology, and Scientific Director for the Center for Healthy Environments and Communities at the Graduate School of Public Health (GSPH), University of Pittsburgh. Dr Volz's research interests are primarily focused on how industrial and municipal toxins and carcinogens move through the air, water, soil and groundwater to reach people and how to block this movement. Dr. Volz is the Principal Investigator for the Three Rivers Fish Consumption Project, which has found significant levels of estrogen-mimicking chemicals in area channel catfish, related to bioaccumulation of pharmaceutical estrogens and xenoestrogens principally from sewer overflows. This project has also discovered dangerous and elevated levels of heavy metals, including selenium and mercury, in fish in the Allegheny River and even Store-Bought Fish. He was Director of the 2004 Amchitka Expedition to determine radionuclide concentrations in marine biota from underground nuclear test shots fired in the Aleutian Islands . Dr. Volz is the PI for the Allegheny River Stewardship Project of 2008, a Heinz and Highmark (through UPCI-CEO) funded, community based participatory environmental research and outreach program that will test several hypothesis concerning identification of sources of pollution by sampling of fish, sediment and water in different locations of the Allegheny River.

Dr. Volz has over 30 years experience in occupational-environmental health, he received his initial training in Public and Occupational Health in the Department of Occupational Health at the University of Pittsburgh 's, Graduate School of Public Health (GSPH) on a fellowship from the U.S. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). Dr. Volz holds an MPH and Doctor of Public Health degree from GSPH. After holding progressively responsible posts in private industry (National Steel Corporation), government (California OSHA Consultation Service) and non-governmental agencies (Western Institute for Occupational and Environmental Health Sciences, Berkeley California), Dr. Volz started an environmental health consulting company in 1984. He has worked in 24 different countries on 5 continents performing radionuclide transport studies, occupational/environmental contaminant/toxin exposure pathway analysis, exposure assessments, environmental risk assessments and engineer and policymaker training for private industry, municipal, state and the federal governments and foreign manufacturers and governmental agencies. He joined the faculty of EOH-GSPH in May of 2004. Dr. Volz was elected to the Omicron Chapter, Delta Omega Honor Society, National Public Health Honor Society in 2006.