The American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH) has named Edward Calabrese, professor of environmental health sciences in the School of Public Health and Health Sciences, as its 2023 Herbert E. Stokinger Award recipient. Calabrese received the award and delivered a keynote lecture during the organization's online awards ceremony on Oct. 18.

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Initiated in 1977, the Herbert E. Stokinger Award recognizes significant contributions in the broad field of industrial and environmental toxicology. The award’s namesake served as chairman of the Chemical Substances Threshold Limit Values Committee from 1961-75.

“It is both my great honor and great pleasure to receive the 2023 Stokinger Award of the ACGIH,” Calabrese said in his remarks to the organization. “I greatly appreciate receiving the Stokinger Award since my work in the area of hormesis and the historical foundations of cancer risk assessment have been controversial and very challenging to the field and regulatory agencies.”

Calabrese, who was recently rated third for highly ranked scholars in environmental health sciences during lifetime by ScholarGPS, has conducted extensive researched in the area of host factors affecting susceptibility to pollutants. He was featured in a 22-episode documentary video series on the historical foundations of cancer risk assessment commissioned by the Health Physics Society.

Over the past 20 years, Calabrese has redirected his research to understanding the nature of the dose response in the low dose zone and underlying adaptive explanatory mechanisms. This research has led to important discoveries which indicate that the most fundamental dose response in toxicology and pharmacology is the hormetic-biphasic dose response relationship. These observations are leading to a major transformation in improving drug discovery, development and in the efficiency of the clinical trial, as well as the scientific foundations for risk assessment and environmental regulation for radiation and chemicals.

Calabrese is the author of over 1,000 papers in scholarly journals, as well as more than 10 books. He is also co-editor of the 2010 published book entitled “Hormesis: A Revolution in Biology, Toxicology and Medicine.” He serves as chairman of the Biological Effects of Low Level Exposures (BELLE) and as director of the Northeast Regional Environmental Public Health Center at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

More information on Cabrese, his work and awards can be found on the SPPHS website.