Newsroom & PublicationsIrva Hertz-Picciotto, Ph.D., M.P.H. 
Clinical/Research Interests
Irva Hertz-Picciotto is an internationally renowned environmental epidemiologist with more than 200 scientific publications addressing environmental exposures, their interactions with nutrition, and their influences on pregnancy, the newborn, and child development. She leads a program of interdisciplinary research on the environmental contributors to autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders, as well as mechanisms of pathogenesis. Studies involve collaborations with immunology, molecular biology and microbiology, genomics, environmental sciences, nutrition and biostatistics.
Hertz-Picciotto launched the CHARGE Study, the first large, comprehensive population-based study of environmental factors in autism, and the landmark MARBLES study of early environmental and biologic predictors of autism. She also collaborates on the multi-site EARLI study of risk factors for autism spectrum disorders, and directs the Northern California Center for the National Children's Study.
Beyond the autism program, other projects have focused on exposure-related behaviors, polychlorinated biphenyls and pesticides in relation to early growth and development, lead exposures during pregnancy, and the relation of air pollutants to immune development and early acute respiratory illness.
Hertz-Picciotto has chaired or served several state, national and international advisory panels and was elected president of two of the largest professional epidemiology societies. She sits on editorial boards for major scientific journals in epidemiology, environmental health, and autism and has taught epidemiologic methods on four continents. In 2011, she received the Goldsmith Lifetime Achievement Award by the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology.
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Address:
Davis, CA 95616
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Education:
Berkeley, California
Ph.D., M.P.H. 1989
UC Berkeley
Berkeley, California
M.A. 1985
UC Berkeley
Berkeley, California
M.P.H. 1984
UC Berkeley
Berkeley, California
B.A. 1970
Professional Memberships:
International Society for Autism Research, 2007-present
International Society for Environmental Epidemiology (Founding member), 1988-present, President 2002-2003
Society for Epidemiologic Research, 1983-present, President 2005-2006
Honors and Awards:
Lifetime Achievement Award: John Goldsmith Award for Sustained and Outstanding Contributions to Environmental Epidemiology, bestowed by the ISEE (International Society for Environmental Epidemiology). Invitation to deliver the Keynote John Goldsmith Memorial Award presentation at the annual ISEE meeting in Barcelona, Spain, September 2011., 2011
Top Ten Papers of 2011 by NIEHS, and by Autism Speaks, as senior author of: Schmidt et al. The combined effects of maternal prenatal vitamin intake and common functional gene variants in folate and transmethylation pathways on risk for autism spectrum disorders in the CHARGE study. Epidemiology 22:476-485. PMID 21610500, 2011
The Epidemiology Monitor Editor's Picks, March 2009 - Best Selections www.epimonitor.net, "Researchers Suggest Increase in California Autism Cases Is Real." Citation for Hertz-Picciotto Delwiche, Epidemiology 2009 paper, 2009
Jubilee Medal, Scientific Board of the Slovak Medical University in Bratislava, Celebration of institutional postgraduate education of health care professionals in Slovakia, 2008
UPI’s (United Press International) “Quote of the Year” by Dan Olmsted Washington, DC, 2006
NCI Distinguished Lecturer in Occupational and Environmental Cancer, National Cancer Institute, Occupational and Environmental Epidemiology Branch, Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, 2004
NAS/NRC Lifetime Appointment as National Associate of the National Academies; awarded by the National Academy of Sciences and National Research Council, 2002
McGavran Award for Excellence in Teaching, School of Public Health, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 2001
Delta Omega Honorary Public Health Society, Theta Chapter, 1998
First prize for investigation in “Public Health and Social Sciences” Secretary of Health through the Director of the NIH of Mexico, 1997
NAS (National Academy of Sciences) Young Investigator Program Awardee, Program on Environmental Health in the Donetsk Region of Ukraine, 1997
Abraham Lilienfeld Student Prize Paper, Best Doctoral Dissertation of the Year, Society for Epidemiologic Research, 1988
U.S. Public Health Service Traineeship for Graduate Research, 1986-1988, 1986-88
Society for Epidemiologic Research Student Workshop Participant, “A Positive Use of Negative Epidemiologic Studies”, 18th Ann. Mtg., Chapel Hill, NC, 1985
Select Recent Publications:
Paper of the Month for April 2012 by NIEHS, as senior author: Krakowiak et al. Maternal metabolic conditions and risk for autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders. Pediatrics 2012; 129(5):31121-8x.
Howards PP, Hertz-Picciotto I, Bech BH, Nøhr EA, Anderson AMN, Poole C, Olsen J. Spontaneous abortion and a diet drug containing caffeine and ephedrine. PLoS ONE November 16, 2012.
Vogt R, Cassady D, Frost J, Bennett DH Hertz-Picciotto I. An assessment of exposures to toxins through diet among California residents. Environ Health 2012;11:83
Schmidt RJ, Hansen RL, Hertz-Picciotto I (epub May ‘12). Maternal periconceptional folic acid intake and risk for autism spectrum disorders in the CHARGE case-control study. Am J Clin Nutrition 2012 Jul;96(1):80-9.
Chaidez V, Hansen R, Hertz-Picciotto I. (epub 7 Mar 2012) Autism spectrum disorders in Hispanics and non-Hispanics. Autism: The International Journal of Research and Practice 2012;16(4): 381-397.
Krakowiak P, Walker CK, Bremer AA, Baker AS, Ozonoff S, Hansen RL, Hertz-Picciotto I (epub 9 Apr 2012). Maternal metabolic conditions and risk for autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders. Pediatrics 129(5):e1121-8x.
Tassone F, Qi L, Zang W, Hansen R, Pessah I, Hertz-Picciotto I (Aug 2011). MAO-A, D?H, and 5-HTT variants in CHARGE: a case-control study of autism spectrum disorders. Autism Res 4:250-61.
Zerbo O, Iosif A-M, Delwiche L, Walker C, Hertz-Picciotto I (epub May 2011). Month and season of conception as a risk factor for autism/autism spectrum disorders. Epidemiology 2011;22:469–475.
Schmidt RJ, Hansen RL, Hartiala J, Allayee H, Schmidt LC, Tassone F, Hertz-Picciotto I. (epub May 2011) The combined effects of maternal prenatal vitamin intake and common functional gene variants in folate and transmethylation pathways on risk for autism spectrum disorders in the CHARGE Study. Epidemiology 2011;22:476-485.
