Speaker profile
Patricia Underwood
Dr. Patricia Underwood recently joined TRC as Vice President with the Strategic Health Sciences Division. She offers over 27 years of experience in toxicology, human health risk assessment, regulatory science, and environmental management, including executive leadership roles at the U.S. Departments of Defense and Homeland Security. She has directed large-scale programs addressing chemical risk, toxicity factor development, and environmental health policy, and has extensive experience in the application of systematic reviews, dose-response modeling, and probabilistic risk assessment.
In her former position as the Chief Toxicologist and Principal Director in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Dr. Underwood oversaw all strategic aspects of chemical risk management and regulatory advocacy for the DoD. She led all interagency engagement with Executive Office of the President (EOP) Office of Management and Budget and the Environmental Protection Agency on Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) toxicity assessments, CERCLA, Safe Drinking Water Act, Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, and Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) hazard assessments and related rulemakings.
In 2014, she established a formal DoD chemical management regulatory advocacy program, representing DoD in hundreds of interagency discussions with OMB and EPA regarding toxicity and risk assessment, encouraging the agency to integrate scientific rigor into chemical hazard assessments. These included engagement on the following regulations:
- EPA Office of Water Perchlorate drinking water determination,
- All EPA IRIS toxicity assessments from 2013 until 2024,
- All EPA TSCA Section 6 risk evaluations and rulemakings,
- EPA Office of Water PFAS drinking water determination,
- EPA Office of Water Perchlorate drinking water determination,
- European Chemicals Agency proposed PFAS restriction.
Earlier in her career, her work with the Department of the Navy and the Department of Homeland Security included applying advanced methods in probabilistic risk assessment, Monte Carlo analysis and Bayesian belief networks to assess and establish acceptable levels of chemical exposure. She has experience with all aspects of human health risk assessment including chemical hazard assessments, systematic review, development of hazard criteria and related federal rulemaking.
Dr. Underwood has co-authored numerous national level technical and policy documents on emerging contaminants. She was a contributor to the Executive Office of the President National National Emerging Contaminants Research Initiative) and received the EPA Bronze Medal for Commendable Service for her contributions. She served as chair of several EOP Council on Environment Quality (CEQ) Policy Coordinating Committees on PFAS. She was an active member of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) PFAS working group and contributed to the OSTP PFAS Federal R&D Strategic Plan.
She holds a PhD in Toxicology, an MBA from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, and has been a Diplomate of the American Board of Toxicology for over 25 years.