Christine Ogilvie Hendren, PhD

Biography

Dr. Christine Ogilvie Hendren is the Executive Director and a Research Scientist at the Center for the Environmental Implications of NanoTechnology (CEINT). Dr. Hendren synthesizes CEINT research across the various disciplines and entity members of the Center, with a focus on facilitating efficient interdisciplinary communication in a continual drive toward environmentally relevant approaches to assessing environmental risks. She leads center efforts to develop the CEINT NanoInformatics Knowledge Commons (NIKC) to collect, integrate and interrogate nanomaterial information to advance the nanomaterial environment, health and safety (nanoEHS) field. Current NIKC efforts focus on investigating key parameters to forecast potential environmental risk profiles of engineered nanomaterials, and on developing targeted approaches to collect and integrate complex nanomaterial datasets within the Center and with a global network of data partners. Dr. Hendren co-chairs the Nanotechnology Cancer Informatics Program’s Nanotechnology Working Group, co-chairs the CODATA Working Group on Nanomaterials, and serves as the U.S. co-chair for the NNCO US-EU Risk Assessment Community of Research (COR) as well as organizing interactive cross-COR events. Dr. Hendren’s research interests include: interdisciplinary research strategies to generate and interpret environmentally relevant forecasts of exposures and hazards of nanoscale materials; combining risk assessment of new technologies with decision support and directional policy advising; solutions (both technological and process-based) for integrating and interrogating large emerging datasets to support decisions under conditions of great uncertainty; integrating vital aspects of the humanities including epistemology, history, and storytelling with the teaching and practice of environmental risk assessment; and developing and applying participatory methods for implementation of interdisciplinary research. In support of interdisciplinary approaches to complex problems, Dr. Hendren is active in the Science of Team Science Community, and in 2015 founded the Intereach (Interdisciplinary Integration Research Careers Hub) Community of Practice and Research to connect research professionals with expertise in synthesizing and communicating integrated science across disciplinary and institutional boundaries to effectively address wicked problems. The focus of this developing community is to establish dedicated career paths, best practices, success metrics and training resources for scientists filling these increasingly important and often organizationally-unique roles.