People
Leadership
Gary W. Miller, PhD
- Center Director
Dr. Miller is Professor of Environmental Health Sciences (in Molecular Pharmacology and Therapeutics), Vice Dean for Research Strategy and Innovation at the Mailman School of Public Health, Co-Director, Precision Medicine Core, Irving Institute and founding director of the Center for Innovative Exposomics. Dr Miller is a leader in the exposome field, which strives to provide a systematic and comprehensive analysis of the non-genetic contributors to health and disease. He was the founding director of the HERCULES Exposome Research Center at Emory University, the first exposome-based research center in the U.S. He authored the first book on the topic, The Exposome: A Primer published by Elsevier. His research focuses on environmental drivers of neurodegeneration. His laboratory uses a variety of methods including transgenic mouse production, immunohistochemistry, neurotransmitter transport assays, high-resolution metabolomics, electrochemistry, and behavioral assays. His work is conducted in several experimental models from cultured neurons and C. elegans to mice and human studies.
Randolph Reyes Singh, PhD
- Deputy Director
Randolph Singh is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at Columbia Mailman School of Public Health. His primary focus lies at the intersection of human health, environmental health, and analytical chemistry. Randolph uses high resolution mass spectrometry-based nontarget analysis (NTA) and orthogonal techniques to explore the chemical exposome in different human disease cohorts in order to help us understand the role of chemical exposures in disease development and progression. He is also interested in using NTA to highlight differences in chemical exposures arising from social disparities and inequities.
Sophie Thuault-Restituito, PhD
- Executive Director of Strategic Initiatives, Center Administrator
Sophie Thuault-Restituito, PhD, serves as the Executive Director of Strategic Initiatives, directly reporting to the funding Director, Gary Miller. In this capacity, Sophie works closely with Gary to establish and implement the Center's strategic vision. Before undertaking this role, Sophie held the position of Chief of Staff and Executive Director for Special Projects for the the Executive Vice President for Research, Jeannette Wing. Preceding her tenure there, she assumed the role of Chief of Staff of the Irving Institute for Cancer Dynamics, working under Simon Tavare’s leadership to facilitate the institute's inception. Prior to IICD, Sophie spent two years as Executive Director at the Center for Topology of Cancer Evolution and Heterogeneity at CUIMC. Before joining Columbia University, Sophie was at NYU Langone Health for 13 years, first as a researcher in neuroscience and biochemistry, and later as operations manager/director for research facilities. Sophie received her doctorate in pharmacy and her PhD in neuroscience from the University of Montpellier, France, and completed a postdoc at the University of College London.
Renu Nandakumar, PhD
- Director, Biomarkers Core Laboratory, Irving Institute for Clinical and Translational Research
- Technical Director, Center for Innovative Exposomics
Vrinda Kalia
- Director of Exposome Epidemiology
Vrinda Kalia received her PhD and MPH in Environmental Health Sciences from Columbia University. She earned her undergraduate degree in pharmacy from Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences in Karnataka, India. Her PhD dissertation work, supervised by Dr. Gary Miller, determined the metabolic consequences of proteotoxicity and exposure to the persistent pesticide DDT in Caenorhabditis elegans. During her postdoc, supervised by Dr. Andrea Baccarelli, she trained in the use of extracellular vesicles in EHS research and approaches to use an exposomic framework to discover environmental drivers of aging. She is currently working with Dr. Marianthi-Anna Kioumourtzoglou to discover the longitudinal effects of air pollution exposure on circulating metabolites and with Dr. Miller to uncover environmental chemicals associated with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias.
Team Members
Kam-Meng Tchou-Wong, PhD
- Exec Director, Research Strategy and Innovation
Paula Ralph-Birkett
- Program Manager, Center for Innovative Exposomics
Paula Ralph-Birkett serves as the Program Manager for the Center for Innovative Exposomics within the Dept. Environmental Health Sciences, Mailman School of Public Health. She reports directly to Sophie Thuault-Restituito, PhD, Executive Director of Strategic Initiatives, Center Administrator under Center Director Dr. Gary Miller. Formerly Paula was the Assist. Director of the Program for Mathematical Genomics group within the Department of Systems Biology, Vegalos College of Physicians and Surgeons. Preceding to that role, she was a Grants & Administrative Manager within the College of Dental Medicine, Vegalos College of Physicians and Surgeons. Prior to working at CUIMC, Paula was the lead administrative professional within the Strategic Division of McGraw-Hill Publishing. Paula received her Bachelor of Arts in Communications at St. John’s University.
![Paula Ralph-Birkett]()
Brooklynn McNeil
- Staff Associate III, GC-HRMS, Biomarkers Core Laboratory
Brooklynn is a Staff Associate at the Exposomics center within the Biomarkers Core Laboratory at the Irving Institute for Clinical and Translational Research, Columbia University Medical Center. Here she operates to Gas Chromatography (GC) High Resolution Mass Spectrometry platform to perform Exposomics experiments. She develops automated sample preparation methods for large cohort plasma studies, maintains proper performance of the instrument, and aids the development of data processing workflows. Data generated by the GC Orbitrap is used to characterize the external exposome including various compound classes of many origins. Brooklynn underwent training at the University of Georgia, receiving a Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology as well as a minor in Global Health
Saurabh Dubey
- Staff Associate III, LC-HRMS, Biomarkers Core Laboratory
Saurabh Dubey is currently Staff Associate in the Exposomics facility at Biomarkers Core Laboratory, Irving Institute for Clinical and Translational Research, Columbia University Medical Center. His primary responsibilities at Biomarkers Core Lab include establishing and developing Liquid Chromatography (LC) Orbitrap High-Resolution Mass Spectrometry based workflows to generate data for untargeted metabolomics and Exposomics research, developing and customizing sample preparation protocols for complex biological matrices (urine, plasma, cerebral spinal fluid, cell, tissue) and preparing, monitoring and analyzing biological samples using LC-Orbitrap (Thermo QE HF-X Orbitrap and Thermo Exploris 240 Orbitrap) instrumentation. Before joining Columbia,Saurabh, was engaged in the field of human/animal Anti-doping Sciences and analytical toxicology at the National Dope Testing Laboratory in New Delhi, India and Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA.
Hanisha Udhani
- Staff Associate III, Bioinformatics, Biomarkers Core Laboratory
Hanisha Udhani (Hani for short) is currently working as Staff Associate III – Bioinformatics Scientist at Biomarkers Core Laboratory, Irving Institute for Clinical and Translational Research, Columbia University Medical Center. In this role, she designs, develops & implements high throughput & efficient data processing workflows by integrating open-source and commercial platform packages for spectral processing, feature annotation, statistical analysis, data interpretation, & visualization. She also Performs QC monitoring & routine bioinformatics analysis of LCMS & GCMS-based untargeted metabolomics datasets.
She also develops novel tools & strategies to address metabolomics project-specific analytical challenges & provides custom solutions and performs upgrades, maintenance, & troubleshooting of the servers, in-house analytical platform, & the commercial software. She got her Bachelor of Engineering (BE) in Biotechnology from Mumbai University - India and Master of Science in Bioinformatics from Northeastern University – Boston, MA, USA.
Senior Advisors
Dean Jones
- Professor of Medicine (Division of Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care Medicine) and Biochemistry (Adjunct) at Emory University School of Medicine
- Director of the Clinical Biomarkers Laboratory, Emory University School of Medicine
- Adjunct Professor of Environmental Health Sciences
- Senior Advisor
Chirag Patel
- Associate Professor of Biomedical Informatics, Blavatnik Institute Biomedical Informatics, Harvard Medical School
- Senior Advisor
Ana Navas-Acien, MD, PhD, MPH
- Professor and Incoming Chair (Effective July 1) of Environmental Health Sciences
- Senior Advisor
Muredach Relly
- Florence and Herbert Irving Endowed Professor of Medicine
- Director, Irving Institute for Clinical and Translational Research
- Associate Dean for Clinical and Translational Research
- Senior Advisor
Postdoctoral Research Scientists
Meghan Bucher, PhD
- Miller Lab
Meghan Bucher, PhD is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences. She joined the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University in January 2020 after receiving a PhD in Neuroscience from the University of Pittsburgh. Her current work utilizes in vitro and Caenorhabditis Elegans models to understand biological, toxicological, and pharmacological regulators of dopamine neuron homeostasis with relevance for diseases and disorders of dopamine systems including ADHD, substance use disorder, and Parkinson’s disease. In addition, Dr. Bucher has contributed to literature reviews advocating for the use of Exposomics as a tool to understand how environmental exposures contribute to sex- and gender-specific health outcomes.
Yunjia Lai, PhD
- Miller Lab
Yunjia Lai, PhD, is a Postdoctoral Research Scientist in the Miller lab. She is broadly interested in elucidating gene-environment interactions and microbiome influences linked to neurological disorders. She received her PhD at UNC Chapel Hill, where she developed analytical chemistry (high-resolution mass spectrometry-based) and systems omics approaches to probing environmental and gut microbial effects on humoral gut-brain axis. In the Miller Lab, her work continues to focus on exposome analysis, microbiomics, and neurotoxicant-oriented toxicological research topics to elucidate the environmental drivers of neurodegeneration, including Parkinson's disease. Yunjia is also involved in the BCL Core Lab thanks to her background as analytical chemist and toxicologist and her extensive research experience in leveraging high-resolution mass spectrometry technologies for systems toxicological insights. She develops novel omics assays and informatics pipelines.
Carolina Duarte Hospital, PhD
- Miller Lab
Carolina Duarte Hospital, PhD, is a Postdoctoral Research Scientist in the Department of Environmental Health Science. She holds a Ph.D. in Toxicology from the Université Paris Cité, where she specialized in studying Mechanisms of toxicity of succinate dehydrogenase inhibitors (SDHi) fungicides: impact on mitochondrial functions and metabolic reprogramming in human colon epithelial cells. Since May 2023, Carolina has been conducting her research at Miller's Lab in the Mailman School of Public Health. Her current work primarily revolves around the exposomic approach to evaluating exogenous toxicants. Additionally, she is actively engaged in research utilizing Extracellular Vesicles (EVs) for exposomics investigations. Carolina's research interests extend to investigating the correlation between exposure to environmental toxicants and neurodegenerative diseases, with a particular focus on Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases. Through her research endeavors, she aims to unravel the intricate toxicological mechanisms underlying these neurological impairments, thereby contributing significantly to advancing our understanding of the intricate connections between environmental factors and neurological health.
Paolo Reho, PhD
- Miller Lab
Paolo Reho, PhD, is a Postdoctoral Research Scientist in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences. He earned his PhD in Genetics, Molecular, and Cellular Biology from the University of Pavia (Italy). In 2020, he started his first postdoctoral experience at the NIH - National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (Bethesda, MD). Dr. Reho has dedicated his research on understanding the genetic and epigenetic factors contributing to neurodegeneration, with a specific focus on Lewy body dementia and multiple system atrophy. He recently elucidated the association of rare pathogenic mutations and specific epigenetic modulations with the etiology of Lewy body dementia. In October 2023, Dr. Reho joined the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. Here, he applies multi-omics computational approaches to investigate the intricate interplay between genetics and exposomics in neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease, as well as individual drug responses.
Students
Jocelyn Dicent
- Miller Lab
Jocelyn is a 3rd-year PhD student in Environmental Health Sciences in Dr. Gary Miller’s lab. She entered the program 2021 with a BS in Chemistry from Yale University. At Yale, her research primarily focused on organic synthesis in Dr. Craig Crews’ lab. She also spent time doing bioengineering research using C. elegans and microfluidic devices in Dr. Hang Lu’s lab at Georgia Tech. After graduating, she worked at NYU in Dr. Kurunthachalam Kannan’s lab. She focused on analyzing concentrations of metabolite organophosphate esters (mOPEs) in urine using mass spectroscopy. Her current research interests include neurotoxicology, metabolomics, and using the C. elegans models to explore the outcomes of toxins or toxicants on health. Currently, she is working on studying trichloroethylene (TCE) in the context of Parkinson’s Disease incidence using metabolomics, the C. elegans model, molecular biology, and basic science approaches for her dissertation work.
Lab Managers
Hae Chung
- Miller Lab
Hae Jung Chung joined the Miller lab in December 2022. She manages the day-to-day operations of the Miller lab, ensuring that all personnel have access to the resources they need to complete experiments. Additionally, for her research project, Hae Jung uses cell culture models to investigate the function of two proteins in Parkinson’s Disease, the vesicular monoamine transporter 2 (VMAT2) and the synaptic vesicular glycoprotein 2C (SV2C). Hae Jung has been at Columbia University for 25 years. Before joining the Miller lab, she was in the Steinberg lab, studying the Beta1-Adrenergic Receptor, a transmembrane protein expressed predominantly in cardiac tissue. Hae Jung received her BS and MS in Nutrition Science at Ewha Womans University, Seoul, Korea, her M.A. in Nutrition Science at Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas, and her MS in Acupuncture at Tri -tate College of Acupuncture, New York, NY.
