Ellen Silbergeld


Ellen Kovner Silbergeld is a leading American expert in the field of environmental health.

Background

Elizabeth Kovner was born in 1945. Her parents were Joseph Kovner, a lawyer and Mary Helen Gion. She has two siblings.
After graduating from Vassar College summa [cum laude] in 1967, she earned a Ph.D. in environmental engineering at Johns Hopkins University in 1972.

Career

She is a professor at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University and used to be on the faculty at the University of Maryland, Baltimore. Before that she worked as a scientist for Environmental Defense. She was editor-in-chief of the journal Environmental Research she serves on many other editorial boards
She is an authority on the toxicological manifestations of lead and mercury poisoning, having done some of the first research on how lead affects the central nervous system. Silbergeld has also been involved in public policy and raised public awareness of the dangers of lead. Her current research focuses on the role is food animal production in the selection and dissemination of antimicrobial resistance. She has written a book on this topic, Chickenizing Farms and Food published by Johns Hopkins [University Press] in 2016.
In 1993, she received the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship from the MacArthur Foundation.