CHE Partner Spotlight: A Small Dose of Empowerment

The hardest part of being a neurotoxicologist – someone who studies the effects of toxins on the brain – is not the studying-the-brain part. At least, not for longtime CHE Partner Steven G. Gilbert, PhD, DABT, Director and Founder of the Seattle, WA-based Institute of Neurotoxicology and Neurological Disorders (INND) and Managing Editor of Toxipedia.org. For Dr. Gilbert, the hard part is figuring out how to manage his time.No longer active in research, he works on different ways to explain to the public what is already known about how environmental toxins affect our health. For example, in 2006, he created Toxipedia, a Web-based encyclopedia of toxicology that uses modified open-source wiki technology to make information more freely available. He writes and publishes papers (most recently, a book review in Environmental Health Perspectives). He is working on the second edition of his book, A Small Dose of Toxicology: The Health Effects of Common Chemicals (Informa HealthCare, 2004). “There are a million things to do,” he said in a telephone interview, explaining his ongoing struggle with time management. “What’s the most effective way to use your time? If you really want to change what’s going on, what’s the best way to do that?”