About the Air District

Gina Solomon

Gina M. Solomon, M.D., M.P.H.

Gina Solomon is a Clinical Professor in the Division of Occupational and Environmental Medicine at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) and a Principal Investigator at the Public Health Institute in Oakland, CA. She served as the Deputy Secretary for Science and Health at the California Environmental Protection Agency (CalEPA) from 2012-2017, and as a senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council from 1996-2012. She was also the director of the occupational and environmental medicine residency program at UCSF, and the co-director of the UCSF Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Unit. Dr. Solomon’s work has spanned a wide array of areas, including children’s environmental health, the health effects of diesel exhaust, reproductive toxicity of environmental chemicals, cumulative impacts and environmental justice, and the use of novel data streams to screen chemicals for toxicity.

She has also done work in exposure science for air pollutants, pesticides, mold, and heavy metals. She conducted environmental exposure studies in Louisiana in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and during the Gulf oil spill, published the first study documenting children's exposure to diesel exhaust inside school buses, and served on the Scientific Guidance Panel for Biomonitoring California, a statewide program to measure contaminants in people. Dr. Solomon has also done work on the health effects of climate change. She published a study documenting the large spike in emergency department visits in California during the 2006 heat wave, and has published work documenting the health costs of climate-related events. She works to educate health care professionals and students about the health effects of climate change.

During her tenure at CalEPA, Dr. Solomon advised the Secretary on a wide range of issues related to chemicals in consumer products, toxic air contaminants, drinking water contaminants, and pesticides. She was also involved in recommending policy changes in the aftermath of the Chevron Richmond refinery fire. She chaired the California Interagency Refinery Task Force and successfully spearheaded regulations to improve refinery safety in California. Dr. Solomon has served on multiple boards and committees of the National Academies of Science, the EPA Science Advisory Board and the National Toxicology Program’s Board of Scientific Counselors. She also serves on the EPA Board of Scientific Counselors Chemical Safety for Sustainability subcommittee. Dr. Solomon received her bachelor’s degree from Brown University, her M.D. from Yale, and did her M.P.H. and her residency and fellowship training in internal medicine and occupational and environmental medicine at Harvard.

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Marcy Hiratzka
Clerk of the Boards, Executive & Administrative Resources

415.749.5073 mhiratzka@baaqmd.gov

Vanessa Johnson
Manager, Executive & Administrative Resources

415.749.4941 vjohnson@baaqmd.gov

Executive Office

415.749.4941

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Spare the Air Status

Last Updated: 4/21/2017