Profiles of DOE Human Subjects Program Management

Profiles of the DOE Human Subjects Program Management

Elizabeth (Libby) White is the Human Subjects Protection Program Manager performing the duties of the human subjects protection officer for the Department of Energy (DOE), in the Office of Science (SC), Office of Biological and Environmental Research (BER), Life and Medical Sciences Division. She works closely with Dr. Peter Kirchner, M.D.

White and Kirchner report to the Director of the Life and Medical Sciences Division. White moved to the Office of Science from the Department’s Office of Health, Safety and Security (HS), where she was Director of the Office of Former Worker Screening Programs. During her 12 years in HS and its predecessor organization, the Office of Environment, Safety and Health, White managed both domestic medical screening services and international radiation health effects research involving human subjects. In those positions, she worked closely with the Office of Science and applicable Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) to ensure initial and ongoing compliance with human subjects protection requirements.

White also worked with long-time DOE Human Subjects Program Manager, Dr. Susan Rose, to jointly establish the DOE-wide Central Beryllium Institutional Review Board to address beryllium-related human subjects protection issues associated with research and medical screening. White has a Master's in Business Administration from Northwestern University and a Master's in Public Health from Johns Hopkins University.

Peter Kirchner, M.D., is board certified in internal medicine and nuclear medicine. He came to DOE in 1998 from the University of Iowa where he was Director of Nuclear Medicine and Professor of Radiology and Medicine. He is currently working on an Intergovernmental Personnel Agreement from Oak Ridge National Laboratory to DOE where he is Senior Scientist Advisor to the Life and Medical Sciences Division.

At DOE, over the past few years, Kirchner assisted Viola in managing the DOE Human Subjects Protection Program along with his other responsibilities. Kirchner undertook multiple initiatives, including revision of the DOE Order on the Protection of Human Subjects (443.1A) and a major overhaul of the department’s Web site on human subjects protection. He is detailed part-time to the Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering in the National Institutes of Health where he is a senior advisor.

Kirchner earned a B.A. in physics at Yale University and an M.D. at Columbia University, with residency training in internal medicine at the National Naval Medical Center (NNMC) and fellowship training in nuclear medicine at Johns Hopkins University. He subsequently established a residency program in Nuclear Medicine at NNMC and directed the nuclear medicine service. In 1977, he was an Associate Professor at the University of Chicago and the Associate Director of Nuclear Medicine. In 1981, he became Director of Nuclear Medicine at the University of Iowa.

Dr. Anna Palmisano, PhD, is the Associate Director of the Office of Science for the Office of Biological and Environmental Research (OBER) in the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). With an annual budget of more than $500 million, the Office of Biological and Environmental Research is the nation’s leading program devoted to the study of biology and systems biology with applications to bio-energy production and use and to environmental remediation. The Office is also one of the nation’s leading contributors to the study of global climate change.

She joined the Office of Science on March 3, 2008 from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service where she served as the Deputy Administrator for Competitive Programs. From 1998 to 2004, she was a Program Manager in the Office of Biological and Environmental Research, where she developed and managed a wide range of basic research programs including bioremediation, carbon cycling and sequestration, and genomics. Prior to joining DOE, she was a Program Manager and acting Division Director for Biomolecular and Biosystems Sciences and Technology in the Office of Naval Research.

Dr. Palmisano received a B.S. degree in Microbiology with high honors from the University of Maryland and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Biology from the University of Southern California. She was an Allan Hancock Fellow at the University of Southern California and a National Research Council Fellow in planetary biology at NASA-Ames Research Center. She also worked as a staff microbiologist in the Environmental Safety Division of the Procter & Gamble Co. Her research interests have included sea ice microbial communities, stream ecology, microbial mats, bioremediation of organic pollutants, and landfill microbiology. She has led five research expeditions to Antarctica and published numerous papers in the field of microbial ecology.