Inaugural Paul B. Hammond Award Goes To NIEHS Director

In a ceremony held Jan. 14, 2003, Kenneth Olden, PhD, director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) and the National Toxicology Program (NTP), received the inaugural Paul B. Hammond award.  Dr. Paul B. Hammond served on the faculty of the UC Department of Environmental Health from 1972 until his death in 1998.  His work in lead toxicity led to discoveries of the devastating effects that low levels of environmental lead has on children. 

The first Paul B. Hammond award was presented to Dr. Olden in recognition of his efforts to improve children’s health in the United States. Under his leadership, the NIEHS is funding $4.2 million of research this year into children’s environmental health in Cincinnati.  For the last 27 years, the NIEHS has provided annual funding of at least $1 million in Cincinnati for childhood lead poisoning research. The NIEHS has also funded one of twelve national Children’s Environmental Health Centers at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, under the direction of Bruce Lanphear, MD.

Dr. Olden was named the third director of the NIEHS and second director of the NTP in 1991.  He is the first African-American to become director of one of the 18 institutes of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the over 100 year history of the agency.