From the food and water we consume to the personal care products we use every day, exposure to potentially harmful chemicals is an unavoidable part of modern life. Yet determining how this mix of hundreds of different chemicals affects human health is an unimaginably complex problem, and scientists are only beginning to scratch the surface.

In her lab at the UMass Amherst School of Public Health & Health Sciences, developmental toxicologist Alicia Timme-Laragy conducts innovative research to illuminate how early exposure to chemicals may influence organ development and long-term disease risk. Her work largely focuses on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), a large group of persistent “forever chemicals” used in many consumer and industrial products, but she has also examined other classes of chemicals such as phthalates, parabens, and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). 

“Understanding the effects of these chemicals in early life is important because what happens in the womb can last a lifetime,” says Timme-Laragy, professor of environmental health sciences. “These subtle changes in how organs develop and function can lead to an increased risk of disease, including diabetes and obesity, later in life.”

Timme-Laragy’s work has been continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) since 2016, and she has published nearly 60 peer-reviewed articles in leading journals such as Environmental Health Perspectives, Redox Biology, and Toxicological Sciences. Her research on PFAS chemicals has informed state and national policies, guided community actions on environmental contamination, and earned her national recognition, including the 2025 Stephen B. Harris Mid-Career Scientist Award from the Society of Toxicology Specialty Section.

Where the Natural Environment Meets Health

Timme-Laragy’s research is inspired by her early connection to the natural environment and interest in health. She was raised in rural upstate New York at the foothills of the Catskill Mountains, where she spent her days playing outside in nature. She fondly recalls swimming in a neighbor’s pond and catching newts, frogs, and turtles, until one year the animals all disappeared. 

“I never really understood what happened to them. Looking back and knowing what I know now, there was probably some environmental impact that led to the loss of those animals,” she says. 

With guidance from her health-conscious mother, Timme-Laragy was exposed at a young age to different approaches to managing health. For one of her first jobs, she worked with a local herbalist, harvesting herbs and formulating teas. “I was always skeptical, like, ‘How do you know what these herbs are doing? How can we test that they’re working as expected?’” 

She went on to nurture this scientific curiosity as an undergraduate at Franklin & Marshall College, where she worked in a lab studying the effectiveness of mitigation strategies to improve water quality in Lancaster County. “That process of contributing to new research was super exciting to me,” Timme-Laragy recalls. After graduating, she worked as a technician in a lab at the University of Rochester studying the role of oxidative stress in stem cell differentiation in the developing brain. There, she was exposed to many different aspects of toxicology and, she says, “everything clicked.” She went on to earn a PhD at Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment, where she was introduced to using zebrafish as a model for health research. She recalls this as another pivotal moment in her career, as zebrafish have remained central to her research ever since. After graduate school, she completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, where she worked to firmly establish the zebrafish embryo as a model for research, including in toxicology.

Collaborative Research on the Health Effects of Chemicals

Since joining the UMass Amherst faculty in 2013, Timme-Laragy has led research using zebrafish and cell culture to understand how environmental pollutants and chemicals found in personal care and other consumer products affect embryonic development. She regularly collaborates with colleagues in other departments across the university, including biology, food science, and computer science. 

“One of the things I love about UMass is that people are so willing to collaborate and try out new things,” she says. “I think that makes UMass a really exciting place to do research as part of the scientific community on campus.”

In 2026, Timme-Laragy received a $2.4 million, four-year NIH grant to bring together all four of the zebrafish labs on campus with a goal of improving rigor and reproducibility in biomedical research using zebrafish. 

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“Zebrafish are this incredibly powerful model for conducting research. They share most of the same biological systems and their embryonic development is very similar to other animals, including humans,” she explains. “Because they’re transparent, we can put them under a microscope and observe things happening in their bodies in real time.” 

Also in 2026, Timme-Laragy received a $3.3 million, five-year NIH grant to extend her ongoing research on the relationship between pancreas development, exocrine pancreatic insufficiency (when the pancreas can’t make enough enzymes to properly digest food), and early-life PFAS exposures. In previous research, she observed that zebrafish can regenerate and regrow their pancreas after its development is harmed by PFAS chemicals. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean that the pancreas recovers all its function, she notes, which is something she hopes to investigate further with the new grant. 

“If we could figure out how to convince pancreas cells to return to their normal production of digestive enzymes, that may offer clues that could be harnessed to promote human health,” she says.

Read more about the two 2026 NIH grants.

Timme-Laragy has also recently begun collaborating with researchers on campus who are working to remediate PFAS from drinking water systems. She also has ongoing engagement with a local community—Westfield, Massachusetts—where residents have mobilized in response to PFAS contamination in the water supply, caused by aqueous film-forming firefighting foam used at the Barnes Air National Guard Base.

Timme-Laragy notes that students from Westfield have been inspired by their personal experience to join her lab. “I think it’s been empowering for them to have this opportunity to contribute to research on the implications of environmental chemical exposure,” she says.

Fostering a Team-Oriented Environment to Support Student Growth

Timme-Laragy runs an active mentoring program in her lab, which typically includes about 15 undergraduate students, along with graduate students, a postdoctoral research fellow, and a technician. By cultivating a team-oriented environment in the lab, she guides undergraduates through a gradual process of getting acquainted with research, such that by the time they are juniors or seniors, they are running their own experiments, presenting at conferences, and contributing to publications and grant proposals. 

“I try to really get to know the students and their goals, so I can help them get the most relevant experience,” she says. “It’s an incredible privilege to give these students opportunities and training to help them get where they’re trying to go.”
This mentor–mentee relationship works both ways for Timme-Laragy, who says the best moments in her lab happen when a student calls her over to look at something cool under a microscope.

“These are the times when we both get excited and then ask questions, like ‘What’s happening?’ ‘How did this happen?’ and ‘What’s our next set of questions to better understand this?’” she says. “Those are the really fun moments.”

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