8623D

USEPA Headquarters

401 M Street, S.W.

Washington, DC 20460

Phone: 202-564-3272

Dr. Mahaffey’s professional career is in exposure assessment and toxicology of metals. She has worked extensively in the area of food safety. Following graduate training in nutritional biochemistry and physiology at Rutgers University, she completed post-doctoral training in neuro-endocrinology at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine. Her research has been on susceptibility to lead toxicity with greatest focus on age and nutritional factors resulting in more than 100 publications in this area. During her long career with the United States Government she has been influential in lowering lead exposures for the United States population through actions to removal lead from foods and beverages, and from gasoline additives during the 1970s and 1980s. In recent years, Dr. Mahaffey has been actively involved in risk assessments for mercury. She was the author of the NIH Report to Congress on Mercury, and a primary author of US EPA’s Mercury Study Report to Congress. These reports emphasized risk of developmental deficits caused by methylmercury exposure during development of the nervous system. Currently Dr. Mahaffey is the chemical manager for mercury at US EPA.