David Michaels is an epidemiologist and professor of environmental and occupational health at the Milken Institute School of Public Health of George Washington University. He served as assistant secretary of labor for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration from 2009 to 2017, the longest serving in the agency’s history. From 1998 to 2001, Dr. Michaels was assistant secretary of energy for environment, safety and health, charged with protecting the workers, community residents, and environment in and around the nation’s nuclear weapons facilities. In that position, he was the chief architect of the historic initiative to compensate nuclear weapons workers who were sickened by radiation, beryllium, and other toxic exposures.
Much of Dr. Michaels’ work has focused on protecting the integrity of the science underpinning public health, safety, and environmental protections. On this topic, he is the author of Doubt Is Their Product: How Industry’s Assault on Science Threatens Your Health (Oxford University Press, 2008) and The Triumph of Doubt: Dark Money and the Science of Deception (Oxford University Press, 2020). He is a recipient of the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s Scientific Freedom and Responsibility Award, and the American Public Health Association’s David P. Rall Award for Advocacy in Public Health.
