Sharunda Buchanan to direct NCEH's Division of Emergency and environmental health services.

Dr. Sharunda Buchanan has been appointed as director of the Division of Emergency and Environmental Health Services at the National Center for Environmental Health (NCEH), part of NCEH/ATSDR. This important division is responsible for a range of environmental public health practice activities, from workforce development to lead-poisoning prevention, from radiological health to vessel sanitation, from refugee health to emergency response. The common thread is that the division leads NCEH in the practice of environmental public health, bringing wide multidisciplinary expertise, vast field experience, dedication to serving the public, and a strong science base.

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For the past five years, Buchanan has served as chief of the Environmental Health Services Branch at NCEH. More recently she served as acting director of the Division of Emergency and Environmental Health Services. Dr. Buchanan received her B.S. and M.S. degrees in chemistry from Texas Southern University in 1983 and 1984, respectively She later earned her doctoral degree in biochemistry and toxicology from Clark Atlanta University.

In 1990, Buchanan joined the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) as an environmental health scientist in the Division of Toxicology, where she greatly contributed to the expansion of the Chemical-Specific Data Needs Program and the development of several toxicological profiles. In 1993 Dr. Buchanan moved to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), serving in the Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) as an epidemic intelligence officer assigned to the NCEH Division of Environmental Hazards and Health Effects. There she led a major study of gastrointestinal effects of copper in drinking water and co-led a groundbreaking study of heat wave mortality in Philadelphia. Following her two-year EIS tenure, Buchanan stayed with the division until 2001 as chief of the Epidemiology and Surveillance Section in the Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program.

Buchanan is committed to developing future leaders and maintaining a national agenda that seeks to improve emergency and environmental public health services across the country. She led CDC's Division of Emergency and Environmental Health Services in developing the key document, A National Strategy to Revitalize Environmental Public Health Services in the United States. This publication provides a framework for improving local environmental health services that will, in turn, strengthen the existing public health system against new and emerging environmental public health threats.

Buchanan was one of several managers chosen by CDC to represent the agency at Harvard University's National Preparedness Institute. She was also one of three scholars representing CDC in the 2003-2004 National Public Health Leadership Institute; she played a valuable role on this CDC team, which won the Balderson Award for outstanding accomplishment in succession planning.

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