Academic Credentials
  • Sc.D., Environmental Health, Harvard University, 1994
  • M.S., Environmental Engineering, Northwestern University, 1991
  • B.S., Chemical Engineering, University of California, Santa Barbara, 1989
Professional Honors
  • Outstanding Practitioner Award from the Society for Risk Analysis, 2018, recognizing a scientist with an outstanding risk assessment practice.
  • Chauncey Starr Award from the Society for Risk Analysis, 2001, recognizing a scientist under 40 years of age who has made significant contributions to risk analysis
  • Outstanding Service Award, Society for Risk Analysis, 2009
  • Leslie Silverman Scholarship, Harvard University, 1991
  • Walter P. Murphy University Fellowship, Northwestern University, 1989-1990

Dr. Rick Reiss is an environmental health scientist with extensive expertise in human health risk assessment, exposure assessment, toxicology, environmental chemistry and fate, mathematical modeling, and applied statistics. He provides scientific consulting on complex issues arising under numerous environmental statutes and has deep experience in both chemical risk assessment and air quality analysis.

Dr. Reiss has conducted human health risk assessments, advanced data analyses, probabilistic exposure modeling, and environmental fate and transport modeling for a wide range of environmental agents, including pesticides, industrial chemicals, and chemicals used in consumer products. His work includes risk assessments for both new and existing products. A particular area of specialization is the evaluation of health risks associated with pesticide volatilization and spray drift.

He is actively engaged in the development and application of quantitative methods in risk assessment. Dr. Reiss is the developer of the Probabilistic Exposure and Risk Assessment Model for FUMigants (PERFUM), an air dispersion model designed to evaluate bystander inhalation exposure following fumigant applications. PERFUM is widely used by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and other public agencies to assess bystander risks from pesticide volatilization. In addition, Dr. Reiss leads the development of physiologically based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) models and has contributed to the development of New Approach Methodologies (NAMs) to evaluate species differences in chemical toxicity and mode of action (MOA) analysis. He also has substantial expertise in dose — response modeling and extensive experience with multiple dose — response software platforms.

Dr. Reiss has published broadly in the peer‑reviewed literature in the areas of human and ecological risk assessment, exposure assessment, dose — response analysis, and epidemiology.

He is actively involved in professional scientific societies and is a Past President and Fellow of the Society for Risk Analysis (SRA), the leading international scientific organization dedicated to the advancement of risk analysis. Dr. Reiss served as Managing Editor of Risk Analysis: An International Journal, the field's premier scholarly journal, from 2001 through mid‑2008. He is the recipient of the 2001 Chauncey Starr Award (early career) from SRA and the 2018 Outstanding Practitioner Award from SRA.