Dr. Masako Morishita, Associate Professor, is an internationally-recognized environmental exposure science researcher that today joins the Department of Family Medicine, College of Human Medicine.
Please extend a warm welcome to Dr. Masako Morishita, PhD to our Department. Dr. Morishita is coming from the School of Public Health, University of Michigan, where she is an Research Assistant Professor. Her National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences-funded (NIEHS) research focuses on understanding the link between exposures to airborne particulates and major public health disorders, such as asthma and cardiovascular diseases. Such knowledge is critical in terms of understanding and, ultimately, preventing these diseases, not least those caused or aggravated by inflammatory responses in the body.
More specifically, Dr. Morishita’s exposure science research focuses on improving physicochemical characterization of indoor and outdoor airborne particulate matter, quantification of biological burden and biomarkers of trace elements and metals, and emission source identification using receptor modeling—all of which are essential for human/animal exposure assessment and toxicological/epidemiological studies in multidisciplinary research projects. She incorporates measurement and analytical tools to understand the sources and fates of nanoparticles and ambient air pollutants, and their potential impacts to the environment and human health. She currently leads exposure assessment tasks in the Great Lakes Air Center for Integrated Environmental Research (GLACIER, funded by EPA), and until recently directed the Trace Metals Laboratory for the University of Michigan Environmental Health Sciences Core Center (funded by NIEHS). She is also currently leveraging her exposure science expertise to conduct intervention studies focusing on the reduction of personal exposure to fine particulate matter and adverse cardiovascular responses in urban communities, protecting the health and quality of life of the elderly and other vulnerable populations. She seeks to continue extending her future efforts in community-based environmental health research, focusing on interventions with a particular eye toward tackling environmental health disparity issues. Dr. Morishita will also add critical competence to the Department in terms of understanding how we can personalize treatment and prevention of common chronic disorders facing our population at large, as well as our primary care patients.
Dr. Morishita received her B.S. in chemical engineering and her M.S. and Ph.D. in environmental health sciences from the University of Michigan.
We are very pleased that Dr. Morishita decided to join our Department. I am convinced that these internationally-recognized and well-funded researchers, open to broad interdisciplinary collaboration, will significantly add to our mission of practicing, teaching, and research in High Reliability Healthcare.
Please join me in extending a warm welcome and best wishes to Masako as she joins the Department.
Bengt B. Arnetz, MD, PhD, MPH, MScEpi
Professor in Family and Preventive Medicine
Chair, Department of Family Medicine
College of Human Medicine
Michigan State University
