DOE Headquarters HSPP Leads
Gary Geernaert, Acting DOE Institutional Official for Human Subjects Research
Gary Geernaert is the Director of the Earth and Environmental System Sciences Division Science in DOE’s Biological and Environmental Research. In this capacity, he oversees DOE’s investments in basic research involving environmental, atmospheric, and climate system sciences, include tools involving advanced data analytics. He also provides oversight of two national user facilities. He chairs, co-chairs, or represents DOE in several White House interagency coordination committees. Prior to joining DOE, Geernaert was Director of the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics at Los Alamos National Laboratory; Department Director at the Danish Environmental Research Institute; and a Program Manager at the US Office of Naval Research. Geernaert holds a Bachelors degree from the University of California (Davis), and a PhD from the University of Washington (Seattle). Over his career, he has published four books and over 100 scientific articles.
Elizabeth (Libby) White is DOE Human Subjects Protection Program Manager. In this role, she is responsible for policy development and oversight of the Department’s program for the protection of human subjects in DOE-funded and conducted research. She works closely with her counterpart in DOE’s semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) to implement one consistent program across all of DOE. Prior to moving to the DOE Office of Science, she worked for 12 years in the DOE Office of Health and Safety, serving in several positions including Director of the Office of Former Worker Screening Programs and program manager for international radiation health effects research. She has been a certified IRB professional (CIP) since 2011 and has an MPH from Johns Hopkins University and an MBA from Northwestern University.
Cheri Hautala-Bateman is the NNSA Human Subjects Protection Program Manager. Dr. Hautala-Bateman also serves as the program manager for the Strategic Partnership Programs (SPP) at the Department of Energy/NNSA. She is responsible for overseeing interagency work and non-government sponsored work across the NNSA complex. She also assists the Assistant Deputy Administrator for SPP in working with the NNSA Defense Programs Science Council and coordinating technical research topics for study. Prior to assuming this role, she served as a senior test scientist at the Department of Homeland Security’s Domestic Nuclear Detection Office. She has also served as a senior scientist at the Remote Sensing Laboratory, Andrews AFB location, with responsibility for supporting nuclear and radiological emergency response efforts, as well as managing a support program with three remote offices.
Dr. Hautala-Bateman graduated from the University of MN, Morris with a Bachelor of Arts degree in mathematics and physics. She earned her Ph.D. in nuclear physics from the Ohio University.
Other Key Personnel Who Support the DOE HSPP
Headquarters:
Barbara Brown, DOE Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, is the Administrator for the Central DOE IRB-C.
Field:
Janel Stocton, ORAU, provides technical assistance to the DOE HSPP. She has provided support to the Department of Energy (DOE) since March of 2015 by facilitating communications to and among Institutional Review Board (IRB) and Human Subjects Working Group (HSWG) members; coordinating and supporting meetings and events; providing technical expertise and assistance for resource development and implementation; and supporting efforts for continuing education opportunities and resources for IRB and HSWG members, and subject matter experts. She has more than 15 years of professional experience in communications, event planning, project management, and technical assistance. Janel earned her B.A. in Communication Studies from Concordia College in Moorhead, MN.
Betsy Ellis, ORAU, has been involved with human subjects protection for over 25 years Dr. Elllis is the Chair of the Oak Ridge Site-wide IRB and has been a member of DOE central IRBs since their inception in 2001. Employed at ORAU for over 35 years, Betsy served as an associate director of the Center for Epidemiologic Research and has spent her career studying the effects of occupational exposures on the health of the DOE work force. She also served on a task group to the International Commission on Radiation Protection evaluating the need for additional research on health effects resulting from occupational exposure to alpha emitters. She holds a Ph.D. in epidemiology from the University of North Carolina.
Lindsay Motz, ORAU, is institutional review board (IRB) administrator for the Central Department of Energy (DOE) IRB and the Oak Ridge Site-wide IRB. During her time at ORAU she has worked on the Beryllium-Associated Worker Registry (BAWR) and the Human Subjects Research Database (HSRD). She began working with the IRBs during her time as the Manager for the HSRD. She is responsible for daily operations of both boards and still assist with the annual HSRD report and serves as a back-up Administrator to the other central DOE IRB.. She has a B.S. in Public Health from East Tennessee State University and a graduate certificate in bioethics from Washington State University. In 2014 she became a certified institutional review board professional (CIP).
Jim Morris, Dr. James E. Morris serves as the Chair of the Central Department of Energy Institutional Review Board (CDOEIRB). He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Georgia in 1970. His areas of training and expertise were immunology, immunochemistry and microbiology. This included a post-doctoral appointment at City of Hope Medical Center, Duarte, CA to study, develop and apply antibody-based diagnostics for measuring immune protein markers as well as the carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA). He continued his pursuit of basic research at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA in the areas of immunotoxicology and applied diagnostics. His research activities ended in 2013 when he retired as a senior research scientist at PNNL after 40 years of service. He has served as a member or chair of IRBs for the last 15 years. This included positions at PNNL and over 6 years as a member or Chair of DOEIRBs. He is committed to always seeking the protection of human subjects in research and ensuring that each committee member on the Board has an equal opportunity to contribute in this process.
