Rodney Dietert

Dr. Rodney Dietert, Ph.D. is Professor of Immunotoxicology in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Cornell University, Ithaca, NY and has been on the Cornell faculty for 37 years. He has more than 300 publications with the majority focused on prevention of non-communicable diseases by: 1) seeding and feeding a healthy microbiome and 2) protecting the developing immune system from environmental insult. Among Rodney's authored and edited books are: Strategies for Protecting Your Child's Immune System (World Scientific Publishing, 2010), Immunotoxicity Testing (Springer, 2010), Immunotoxicity, Immune Dysfunction, and Chronic Disease (Springer, 2012) and Science Sifting: Tools for Innovation in Science and Technology (World Scientific, 2013). Rodney previously directed Cornell's Graduate Program in Immunology, the Program on Breast Cancer and Environmental Risk Factors and the Institute for Comparative and Environmental Toxicology and served as a Senior Fellow in the Cornell Center for the Environment. He is editor of Springer's toxicology book series: Molecular and Integrative Toxicology. Since 2010 his grant and advisory panel work includes: the Institute of Medicine, the NIH, the EPA, the CDC, HESI and the WHO. Rodney has presented recent invited lectures for: the NIH's STEP program for grant panel managers, the NIEHS's Partnership for Environmental Public Health, the Harvard School of Public Health's Center for Environmental Health, the FDA, the 2014 Society of Toxicology's symposium on the microbiome, the USDA's National Institute of Food and Agriculture, a Gordon Conference on Endocrine Disruptors, the Collaborative on Health and the Environment, and an Autism Research Institute Conference. Rodney has an interest in history and decorative arts and has co-authored peer-reviewed papers on both Scottish history and Scottish goldsmithing. In addition to co-teaching basic immunology at Cornell, Rodney offers a Cornell course and workshops in creative problem solving for both scientists and general audiences.