Wednesday Open Plenary Panel
Dr. Leslie B. Hammer specializes in the effects of workplace conditions, including supportive supervision at work and occupational stress, on workplace mental health and well-being. She is the Associate Director of Applied Research and Professor in the Oregon Institute of Occupational Health Sciences at Oregon Health & Science University and the Director of the Oregon Healthy Workforce Center, one of 10 centers of excellence in Total Worker Health® funded by the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health. She is also Professor Emerita at Portland State University. Dr. Hammer has extensive experience in designing, implementing, and evaluating worksite supervisor training programs to improve employee mental health and well-being outcomes. She conducts applied research that focuses on workplace interventions aimed at improving supervisor leadership skills and in turn, evaluating the impact of such trainings on both supervisor and worker mental and physical health, safety, and well-being. She has been Principal Investigator of 5 large workplace intervention randomized controlled trials evaluating the effectiveness of supervisor support training funded by the NIH, CDC/NIOSH, and the DoD.
Dr. Marissa Baker is an Assistant Professor in the UW Department of Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences (DEOHS). She also serves as Deputy Director of the Northwest Center for Occupational Health and Safety, housed at DEOHS. She is an affiliate faculty in the Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies at UW. Dr. Baker’s research centers on occupational experiences of vulnerable or underrepresented groups. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she worked closely with a variety of worker organizations, government and industry partners to characterize physical and mental health outcomes experienced by workers, characterize their risk perceptions and needs, and propose and evaluate interventions for safe work. Dr. Baker also studies the experiences of women in the workplace. Trained as an industrial hygienist, Dr. Baker has expertise in workplace exposure assessment, using techniques such as air sampling, biomonitoring and exposure modeling. In 2021, Baker was appointed by the administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency to the Science Advisory Committee on Chemicals. She also serves as a member of the WHO Technical Advisory Group on Occupational Burden of Disease Estimation.
Michael Foley, MA Mr. Foley is an economist at the SHARP Program in the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries. His research interests include the injury risk of precarious work and the growth of the contingent workforce; the long-term economic and social burden of injuries; and the impact of OHS regulations on worker injury rates and costs. Other projects include modelling injury risk in franchised janitorial firms, and workplace violence in healthcare settings. He also serves as an advisor to the Department on regulatory issues. His work has appeared in peer-reviewed journals and he participates on two NIOSH NORA councils.
Thursday Keynote
Dr. Robert Sinclair is a Professor of Industrial-Organizational Psychology at Clemson University (2008-present) where he also serves as the graduate program coordinator for the department’s PhD and MS programs. Bob is a Fellow of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology and the American Psychological Association. He is a founding member and past president of the Society for Occupational Health Psychology and the founding (and current) Editor-in-Chief for Occupational Health Science. His research concerns the intersection of work and health, including topics such as economic stress, organizational climates that promote worker safety, health, and well-being, employee engagement, retention, and turnover, and stressors unique to demanding occupations such as those held by military personnel and healthcare workers.