Alison C. Cullen

Alison C. Cullen joined the University of Washington Daniel J. Evans School faculty as professor of public policy and governance in 1995. Professor Cullen has published more than 60 scholarly works pertaining to the analysis of risks to human health and the environment, decision making in the face of risks which are uncertain or vary spatially, temporally and across populations, and the application of value of information and distributional techniques. Her specialty areas include human health effects, wildfire risk management and climate impacts. At University of Washington she is also an adjunct professor in the School of Public Health and in the College of the Environment, and serves on the Board of the Program on Climate Change. Professor Cullen is the recipient of the Society for Risk Analysis Distinguished Educator Award (2014), a two time winner of the Evans Student Organization Excellence in Instruction Award (1997, 2015) and the Evans School Dean’s Outstanding Teaching Award (2016).

Professor Cullen previously served on the faculty of the Harvard University School of Public Health. She was an NSF 2017 Faculty Fellow in the Advanced Study Program at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, a 2017 Computational information Systems Fellow at NCAR, a 2016 Visiting Fellow at Boston’s Health Effects Institute, and a 2007-08 Visiting Professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zürich. She is the recipient of the 2008 Society of Toxicology Award for a Publication Demonstrating the Application of Risk Assessment, the 2003 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Special Recognition in the Field of Air Toxics, the 2002 Chauncey Starr Award from the Society for Risk Analysis, and the 1998 Joan M. Daisey Award from the International Society of Exposure Assessment. Cullen is also Past-President and Fellow of the Society for Risk Analysis

Professor Cullen is active in risk assessment and management efforts in the U.S. and internationally. She serves as chair of the Chartered Science Advisory Board of the U.S. EPA. and is active in wildfire risk management research with the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Cullen has held positions in the Water Quality Branch of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Gradient Corporation, as well as serving as a technical consultant on many initiatives, including the WA DNR Climate Resilience Advisory Board, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, the State of Washington’s Department of Ecology, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Lenfest Foundation Ocean Program and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Professor Cullen holds a Sc.D. in Environmental Health Management and a M.S. in Environmental Health Science, Exposure Assessment and Engineering from Harvard University School of Public Health. She also holds a B.S. in Civil/Environmental Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).