past event

Center on Nanotechnology and Society
1st Annual Nanopolicy Conference
Nanoworld: Toward a Policy for the Human Future

Richard Denison, Ph.D.

Richard Denison is a Senior Scientist in Environmental Defense's Environmental Health Program, working in its Washington, D.C., office. He specializes in hazard and risk assessment and management for industrial chemicals (including nanomaterials), and associated policy and regulatory issues. Denison is a member of the United States Environmental Protection Agency's National Pollution Prevention and Toxics Advisory Committee (NPPTAC), including its Workgroup on Nanotechnology, and serves on the Steering Group for Nanotechnology of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Denison monitors and manages Environmental Defense's participation in the U.S. High Production Volume (HPV) Chemical Challenge Program, initiated by Environmental Defense, EPA and the American Chemistry Council to provide basic hazard data on the 2,200 chemicals produced in the United States in the largest quantities. He also represents Environmental Defense in proceedings of the Chemicals Committee and the Existing Chemicals Task Force of the OECD that pertain to its HPV SIDS Initiative and related matters. He has authored several papers and reports, and is active in a variety of activities pertaining to nanomaterials, chemicals regulation, and policy at the federal, state and international levels. He joined Environmental Defense in 1987, after several years as an analyst and assistant project director in the Oceans and Environment Program, Office of Technology Assessment, United States Congress.

Denison earned a Ph.D. in molecular biophysics and biochemistry from Yale University in 1982.