Harvard Catalyst Profiles

University of Florida, Gainesville, FL	PhD	08/2019	Soil and Water Sciences
Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH	MS	01/2015	Chemistry
China Agricultural University, Beijing, China	BS	07/2013	Chemistry

Dr. Peng Gao joins the Department of Environmental Health at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in November 2024 as an Assistant Professor of Environmental Health and Exposomics. Previously, Dr. Gao was Assistant Professor in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health at the School of Public Health at the University of Pittsburgh, where he also held an appointment as Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Swanson School of Engineering. Dr. Gao received his master's degree in chemistry from Case Western Reserve University and his doctoral degree in Soil and Water Sciences from the University of Florida. After completing postdoctoral training at Stanford University School of Medicine, Dr. Gao began to work in exposomics, which examines the holistic impact of a person's environmental exposure totality over their lifetime. His research using innovative exposomics techniques in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, has contributed significantly to our understanding of environmental influences on various respiratory diseases, including asthma, lung cancer, and pulmonary arterial hypertension.

Recently, following a large chemical spill and combustion event in East Palestine, Ohio, his team collaborated with local community partners to investigate the post-accident chemical exposome profiles in the impacted areas. Collectively, his research has provided comprehensive assessments of the fate and transport of contaminants, resultant environmental exposures, potential health risks, and disease etiology.

Research Interests

· Targeted and non-targeted analyses of chemical and biological agents in environmental and biological samples;

· Determinations of mixture contamination, exposure, and toxicity of the multiple stressors;

· Interactions between the human exposome and internal multi-omics;

· Applications of the human exposome on health risk assessments and etiology of chronic diseases.

• Environmental health
• Exposome
• Environmental chemistry & toxicology
• Analytical chemistry
• Metagenomics