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Thomas L. Deardorff, Ph.D.

Senior Managing Scientist

EcoSciences

Professional Profile


Dr. Deardorff possesses a broad scope of experience commensurate with previous employment in academia, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and private industry. Among Dr. Deardorff’s areas of expertise are constructed wetlands; wetland mitigation and restoration; industrial wastewater treatment; water quality, environmental impacts to ecosystems; fate and effects of chemicals in the environment; toxicology; seafood safety; and parasitology.

For more than 15 years, Dr. Deardorff worked in the pulp and paper industry as a Human and Environmental Health Advisor. Dr. Deardorff studied various bleach plant processes and their impacts on the quality of wastewater released by the mills and the resulting changes that may occur to organisms in the receiving waters. He also served as a customer advocate on environmental issues such as labeling, paper recycling, and sustainable forestry practices. The use of constructed wetlands for the treatment of industry wastewater has also been a focus for Dr. Deardorff in recent years. He has built several large treatment wetlands in the U.S., which have kept mills in compliance with permits, saved clients millions of dollars, and enhanced the surrounding environment.

Dr. Deardorff chaired the Health Effects committee of the U.S. Forest & Paper Association for over a decade leading its research efforts in areas such as worker exposures (e.g., inhalation of cellulose, wood dust, chloroform, hydrogen sulfide, acetaldehyde, acrolein), epidemiology, EPA’s dioxin reassessment, risk assessments, toxicology and endocrine disruption. Dr. Deardorff was also involved in the associated State, Federal, and Global regulatory interactions.

Dr. Deardorff’s Ph.D. research addressed the risks to humans for infections with parasitic diseases while ingesting raw or inadequately cooked fresh or marine foods, such as sushi, sashimi and ceviche. He worked with these zoonotic diseases for more than a decade at the University of Hawaii’s School of Medicine and at the FDA. Dr. Deardorff is extensively published.

  • Ph.D., Biology, University of Southern Mississippi, 1980
  • M.A., Zoology, University of Northern Colorado, 1975
  • B.A., Science, University of Denver, 1969