Donna Womack manages RTI’s Health and Environmental Risk Assessment program, which includes subject matter experts in environmental science, food safety, nanomaterials, and food security. Her experience includes leading our support of EPA’s Office of Resource Conservation and Recovery Economic and Risk Assessment Staff contract providing ongoing assistance with the development and implementation of exposure and risk assessment models and methodologies. She also leads our Office of Water efforts, evaluating the potential impacts associated with surface disposal, incineration, and land application of biosolids and other residuals. In addition, Ms. Womack contributes to our qualitative and quantitative microbial risk assessment support for the FDA.
Ms. Womack’s work with EPA also includes serving as technical lead on several regulatory assessments and beneficial reuse environmental assessment projects. For example, she was the lead risk assessor/modeler on EPA’s coal combustion residuals, chromated copper arsenate treated wood, and solvent wipes risk assessments. She also was the lead modeler on an EPA/USDA beneficial reuse collaboration that focused on application of spent foundry sands in soil-related settings. Additionally, she led a project to enhance the capabilities of EPA’s groundwater screening model, the Industrial Waste Evaluation Model. Ms. Womack’s other EPA projects have included the case study analysis for the Human Health Risk Assessment Protocol for hazardous waste combustors and development of the EPA’s Human and Ecological Exposure and Risk in Multimedia Environmental System (HE2RMES). HE2RMES is a drag-and-drop integrated modeling system that facilitates probabilistic fate and transport modeling of pollutant releases from five types of waste management units and evaluates resulting human and ecological exposures and risks. She is also developing a web-based decision support system that explicitly considers a range of decision attributes covering public health, environmental integrity, and economic interests regarding shale gas development.
Ms. Womack started her career with RTI in 1985 as a research chemical engineer. She has led many cumulative exposure and risk projects to provide regulatory and risk assessment support to international and domestic clients, including EPA, FDA, state agencies, and a range of other stakeholders.
