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KEYNOTE PRESENTATION Michael Kodas, Author, Photojournalist, Editor and Educator Michael Kodas is a Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist, author, editor and educator and a Senior Editor at InsideClimate News. He won the 2018 Colorado Book Award for General Nonfiction for his book, Megafire: The Race to Extinguish a Deadly Epidemic of Flame, which was also named one of the 20 best nonfiction books of 2017 by Amazon. He is also the author of High Crimes: The Fate of Everest in an Age of Greed, which was named Best Non-Fiction in USA Book News’ National Best Books Awards of 2008 and was the subject of a question on the game show Jeopardy. His photography was featured in the Ken Burns/Lynn Novick documentary The Vietnam War and he has appeared on the HBO program Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, in the American Experience documentary The Big Burn on PBS and in the Emmy Awardwinning documentary The Fire Line. His stories have appeared in the New York Times, The Washington Post, Newsweek, and dozens of other publications. He was part of the team at The Hartford Courant awarded The Pulitzer Prize for breaking news coverage in 1999 and has been honored with awards from many other professional organizations.

KEYNOTE PANEL: Federal Leadership on Wildland Fire Smoke Moderator: Peter Lahm, Air Resource Specialist, USDA Forest Service Patrick Breysse, PhD, Director, National Center for Environmental Health, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Susan Combs, Assistant Secretary of Policy, Management and Budget, U.S. Department of the Interior Anne Idsal, Principal Deputy Assistant Administrator, Office of Air and Radiation, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency James Hubbard, Under Secretary, Natural Resources and the Environment, U.S. Department of Agriculture

Peter Lahm is the Air Resource Specialist for the USDA Forest Service, State and Private Forestry, Fire and Aviation Management, in Washington, DC. He leads the Wildland Fire Air Quality Response Program which provides personnel, technical specialists called Air Resource Advisors, smoke modeling and monitoring capabilities to develop forecasts for areas adversely affected by smoke. Starting in 2004, Pete has led the Forest Service’s national smoke management efforts developing technical approaches and policies related to smoke impacts from prescribed fire and wildfires. Since 2006 he has chaired the National Wildfire Coordinating Group’s Smoke Committee.

James E. Hubbard Jim Hubbard was sworn into office as Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, September 6, 2018. In this role, he oversees the work of the USDA Forest Service.

In 2016 he retired from the U.S. Forest Service as Deputy Chief for State and Private Forestry, with responsibility for Fire and Aviation Management, National Fire Plan, Cooperative Forestry Programs, Forest Health Protection, Conservation Education, Urban and Community Forestry, and the Office of Tribal Relations.

oversight for the implementation of the National Fire Plan and activities of the five land managing bureaus for forest fire prevention, mitigation, and partnerships with communities, tribes, and stakeholders.

Hubbard was a member of the Colorado Forest Service for over 34 years before coming to Federal Service in 2004. He served as Colorado State Forester from 1984-2004. Jim was a leader in the National Association of State Foresters (NASF) and Chaired the Council of Western State Foresters. He provided national leadership in the NASF through his many committee assignments, including the Chairman of the Legislative Committee. Jim served as Liaison to the Western Governor’s Association during the development of the implementation strategy for the National Fire Plan.

He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Forest Management from Colorado State University and is an Honor Alum of the College of Natural Resources. Jim grew up in Neodesha, rural Kansas where he enjoyed being in the woods, exploring new territory, and working the land. He and his wife Cindy have three grown daughters.

Susan Combs, Assistant Secretary for Policy, Management and Budget, oversees budget, policy development, human resources, information technology, acquisition, emergency response and a variety of other mission essential functions at the Department of the Interior. In this role, she leads the Department of the Interior’s modernization and reorganization initiatives to better align bureau efforts, and improve stewardship of DOI’s fiscal resources. In her role as Assistant Secretary for Policy, Management and Budget, she also serves as DOI’s Chief Financial Officer, Chief Acquisition Officer and Chief Performance Officer.

Ms. Combs has an extensive public service career. She previously served in the Texas Legislature, writing and passing the state’s private property legislation, and working to ensure greater transparency in government spending. In her 16 years as a statewide elected official, she served as the state’s first female Agriculture Commissioner and then as the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts/Treasurer and Chief Financial Officer. In these positions, she provided strategic and innovative management, efficient fiscal and operational oversight, successful implementation of practical publicprivate partnerships, and delivered efficient and effective services to the public, which earned her numerous awards.

Patrick Breysse, PhD, joined CDC in December 2014 as the Director of NCEH/ATSDR. Dr. Breysse leads CDC’s efforts to investigate the relationship between environmental factors and health. He came to CDC from the Johns Hopkins University where his research focused on the evaluation and control of chemical, biological, and physical factors that can affect health, with a particular concentration on risk and exposure assessment. Under Dr. Breysse’s leadership, the agency has prioritized work on exposure to lead, safe drinking water, initiated new ATSDR actions to address exposure to hazardous chemicals, and has played a critical role in CDC’s emergency preparedness and response to natural disasters and chemical exposures.

Dr. Breysse received his PhD in Environmental Health Engineering from Johns Hopkins University in 1985 and completed postdoctoral training at the British Institute for Occupational Medicine in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Anne Idsal, Principal Deputy Assistant Administrator, OAR, Environmental Protection Agency Anne Idsal is the Principal Deputy Assistant Administrator for the Office of Air and Radiation (OAR). Before leading OAR, she served as EPA’s Region 6 Administrator. Prior to joining EPA, Anne spent her career working for Texas state government and helped shape environmental policy for the state. Anne’s state experience includes service as the general counsel for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. She then served as the first female Chief Clerk and Deputy Land Commissioner for the Texas General Land Office.

KEYNOTE PANEL: COVID-19 and Wildfire Smoke Moderator: Peter Lahm, Air Resource Specialist, USDA Forest Service Sarah B. Henderson, PhD, Associate Professor (Partner), Senior Scientist, Environmental Health Services, BC Centre for Disease Control, Occupational and Environmental Health (OEH), The University of British Columbia Wayne E. Cascio, M.D., FACC, FAHA, Director, Center for Public Health and Environmental Assessment, Office of Research and Development, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency John Balmes, MD, Professor, University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine George L Geissler, State Forester, Deputy Supervisor of Wildland Fire and Forest Health/Resiliency, Washington Department of Natural Resources

Sarah B. Henderson, As the Senior Environmental Health Scientist at the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control (BCCDC), I lead a program of applied research and surveillance to support evidence-based policy for the province.

This role requires me to be a generalist rather than a specialist, and my work spans a wide range of topics including: air pollution from all provincially relevant sources (wildfire smoke, residential woodsmoke, industry, road dust, shipping, and vehicles); extreme weather events; radon gas; food safety; water quality; and exposures managed by the Drug and Poison Information Centre (DPIC). Most of my work requires the collection, processing, integration, analysis, and communication of health and environmental data, for which I am a proficient and enthusiastic R user.

Wayne E. Cascio, Over 24 years in academia at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and East Carolina University, he engaged in clinical, research, teaching, and healthcare administrative activities. Prior to joining the EPA in 2011, Dr. Cascio worked to increase access to cardiovascular health care in underserved rural areas, and served on EPA’s Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee for Particulate Matter. While at the U.S. EPA Wayne has helped focus research activities of the Office of Research and Development on public health relevant products. He has served as a leader in the Agency’s research and public health guidance on the topic of wildfire smoke and health, and is a co-author of the 2016 Wildfire Smoke: Guide for Public Health Officials. Dr. Cascio has authored or co-authored more than 200 journal articles and book chapters. He is a recipient of a 2013 EPA Gold Medal for Exceptional Service, a 2013 Office of Research and Development Impact Award, APHA’s 2018 Homer N. Calver Award, and numerous Scientific and Technological Achievement Awards. Current research includes the study of the health effects of environmental pollutants informing risk assessment, risk-management decisions, and improvement of public health and quality of life through increased environmental health communication and literacy. Dr. Cascio earned a B.A. from Johns Hopkins University and an M.D. from the University of Maryland. He completed clinical training in internal medicine, and cardiovascular diseases at the University of North Carolina and post-doctoral training in electrophysiology at the Physiologisches Institut, Universität Bern, Switzerland. Dr. Cascio is a clinician-scientist and is board certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine in Internal Medicine and Cardiovascular Diseases.

Dr. Balmes received his MD degree from Mount Sinai School of Medicine in 1976. After internal medicine training at Mount Sinai and pulmonary subspecialty, occupational medicine, and research training at Yale, he joined the faculty of USC in 1982. He joined the faculty at UCSF in 1986 and is currently Professor in the Divisions of Occupational and Environmental Medicine and Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital (ZSFG). His major academic activities include several collaborative epidemiological research projects, various advisory and editorial committees, Director of the UC Berkeley-UCSF Joint Medical Program, Director of the Northern California Center for Occupational and Environmental Health (a consortium of programs at UC Berkeley, UC Davis, and UCSF). Since 2008 he has been the Physician Member of the California Air Resources Board.

George L Geissler joined the Washington Department of Natural Resources in 2018, after 30 years of public and private forestry, and wildland firefighting experience. In Washington, he’s leading agency’s efforts in wildland fire management and forest health and resiliency.

George holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Louisiana State University and a Master of Business Administration from Harvard. He is also a Society of American Foresters Certified Forester.

Prior to joining DNR, he served eight years as Oklahoma State Forester and Director of the Oklahoma Forest Service. He served as the agency’s Forest Management Chief before advancing to the director position where he coordinating the department’s forest management and Cooperative Forestry programs, nursery and genetics programs and prescribed fire.

KEYNOTE PANEL SESSION: Building Coalitions and Enhancing Communication Among Stakeholder Communities Panel Moderator, Beverly Banister, Deputy Regional Administrator, EPA Region 4, Facilitator Marcy Ballman, Division Director, Health Promotions, American Lung Association Darryl Jones, Forest Protection Chief for South Carolina Forestry Commission Jennifer Montgomery, Director, Governor’s Forest Management Task Force Douglas Watson, Chief, Air Monitoring and Planning Section Meteorologist, KDHE-BOA

Beverly H. Banister is the Deputy Regional Administrator for the EPA’s Southeast Region (Region 4). In this capacity, she provides leadership on the implementation and direction of Region 4 programs across the eight southeastern states of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, Mississippi, South Carolina and Tennessee, as well as six federally-recognized tribes. Prior to assuming this position, Ms. Banister served as the Director of the Air, Pesticides and Toxics Management Division in Region 4. In this role, she was responsible for planning, coordinating, and implementing all air, pesticides, and toxics programs throughout the region. In her over 36 years of environmental experience, Ms. Banister has provided management and leadership to both the Waste and Water Divisions in Region 4, as well as EPA Headquarters. Ms. Banister is a graduate of Auburn University with a degree in Chemical Engineering. She is an Alabama native and lives in the Atlanta area.

Marcy Ballman, PhD, received her doctorate in Toxicology from the University of Montana working to improve the quality of life of asthmatic children living in homes with wood stoves. This work led to projects around wildfire smoke exposure mitigation for people with lung disease in her current role as Division Director for the American Lung Association. During the catastrophic 2017 wildfire season in western Montana, she organized and distributed 160 air filter units to 10 elementary schools in the hardest hit communities. The team travelled over 600 miles in 48 hours to provide relief for rural children and clean air in their classrooms. Since then, she has worked to proactively prepare communities for wildfire smoke inundation while still providing disaster relief assistance when needed.

Darryl Jones is the Forest Protection Chief for the South Carolina Forestry Commission. His responsibilities include oversight of wildfire suppression, fire prevention, emergency response, law enforcement, forest health, training & safety, and administration of South Carolina’s Certified Prescribed Fire Manager, Smoke Management, and prescribed burning programs.

Darryl is a Wildland Firefighter, Certified Prescribed Fire Manager, and a Registered Forester, as well as a past president and current steering committee member of the SC Prescribed Fire Council. He holds a B.S. degree in Forest Resource Management from Clemson University.

Jennifer Montgomery has been the Director of the Governor’s Forest Management Task Force since April of 2019. She ran for Placer County Supervisor in 2008 and was elected to three terms.

She attended Mills College from 1979-1983 and graduated with honors and Phi Beta Kappa membership, with a BA in Communications. She has worked at a variety of jobs including at Bank of America, the Sierra Business Council, Sugar Bowl Ski Resort, and ran her own business for 8 years. And she served as a volunteer firefighter for 2 years.

Doug Watson received his degree in Meteorology from the University of Kansas. Doug has been employed as an Environmental Scientist/Meteorologist in the Bureau of Air of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment since March 1999. He is the Chief of the Air Monitoring and Planning Section. He has been heavily involved in the atmospheric modeling and planning areas of ozone, particulate matter and regional haze in the state of Kansas.

Since 2003, Doug has been working with the agricultural interests in the State of Kansas to educate and inform them of the downwind impacts of the burning in the Flint Hills. He was also heavily involved in the development of the Kansas Flint Hills Smoke Management Plan.

KEYNOTE PANEL SESSION Uncharted Fire & Smoke Extremes in Australia: Rapid Responses and What We Learned Monica Long, Meteorologist, Bureau of Meteorology, Australia, Moderator Martin Cope, Australian Commonwealth Science and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Principal Research Scientist Fay Johnston, Associate Professor, Public Health and Primary Care, University of Tasmania Mike Fromm, Meteorologist, United States Naval Research Lab

Monica Long is a meteorologist with a background in fire weather operations. From 2010 she developed and delivered the national Fire Weather Training and Assessment Program for the Australian Bureau of Meteorology. Since 2016 she has worked closely with fire agencies, environmental protection agencies and health departments around Australia to lead improvements to the Bureau's fire weather a nd heatwave services, including the smoke and air quality forecasting capability.

Dr. Martin Cope has worked in the area of air quality modelling and applications for over 30 years. He has been employed by the Australian Commonwealth Science and Industrial Research Organisation as a Principal Research Scientist for the last 20 years. Martin’s research is focused on the atmospheric sources, windborne transport, chemical reaction, and population exposure of fine particles. Most recently, he has been contributing to the development of a short-term (24-72 hour) smoke forecasting system, which is now run operationally by the Bureau of Meteorology for the Australian region.

Dr. Michael Fromm is a research meteorologist in the Remote Sensing Division of the Naval Research Laboratory. At NRL since 1993, his area of focus is in atmospheric aerosols and clouds in the troposphere and stratosphere. He is the lead NRL researcher in the discovery of biomass burning emissions injected into the stratosphere from super-intense forest fires via pyrocumulonimbus, and is founder/ moderator of an email discussion group on that topic. Dr. Fromm makes synergistic use of groundbased data (such as aerosol lidar and Doppler radar) and satellite nadir/limb measurements for multi-spectral characterization of pyroCbs, volcanic plumes, and various forms of aerosol-polluted ice clouds. Using NASA and NRL satellite limb-sounding data, he created a publically available two-decade climatology and database of polar stratospheric cloud observations. He is lead author of 16 refereed journal articles and co-author of 61. He participated in the International Polar Year, POLARCAT (Polar Study using Aircraft, Remote Sensing, Surface Measurements and Models, of Climate, Chemistry, Aerosols, and Transport), and NASA’s ARCTAS (Arctic Research of the Composition of the Troposphere from Aircraft and Satellites) measurement campaign in boreal summer 2008 studying pollutant transport into the Arctic. He is a member of AGU, AMS, and the Solar Occultation Satellite Science Team.

Prof. Fay Johnston is a physician and environmental epidemiologist working in the government and academic sectors. Her research program focusses on environmental determinants of health and their implications for public health policy and practice, with a major focus on managing the community impacts of smoke from wildfires. In 2016 she led the development a novel pollen, smoke and health monitoring system, AirRater, which was rapidly deployed across the country during Australia’s summer bushfire crisis.

KEYNOTE PANEL Wildfire Smoke and Health Effects Moderator, Jason Vargo, Lead Scientist - Climate Change and Health Equity, California Department of Public Health and Mary Clare Hano, Applied Social Scientist, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Research and Development Kat Navarro, Research Industrial Hygienist, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health Sheryl Magzamen, Assistant Professor, Epidemiology, Department of Environmental and Radiological Health Sciences, Colorado State University Ana Rappold, Statistician, Environmental Public Health Division of the National Health and Environmental Effects Research Lab, Environmental Protection Agency

Jason Vargo is a scientist with the California Department of Public Health focused on climate change and health equity. He will moderate the panel and begin by giving a few examples of how the science around wildfire smoke is being translated into policy in California.

Mary Clare Hano is an applied social scientist with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Research and Development –where she is a member of the Smoke Sense research team. With a background in public health and public administration, her work focuses on translational efforts to affect change in complex social problems.

Kathleen Navarro is a research industrial hygienist at the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). Her research focuses on characterizing firefighter’s exposure to chemicals from smoke, understand pathways of exposures, and developing practices to reduce exposure. Previously, she worked for the US Forest Service and conducting research on wildland firefighter exposure to smoke.