Rate My Professor Asa Bradman

Asa Bradman is Professor of Public Health at the University of California, Merced, having joined the faculty in 2020. He previously co-founded the Center for Environmental Research and Children's Health (CERCH) at UC Berkeley in 1998, where he served as Associate Director and Adjunct Associate Professor in Environmental Health Sciences. Bradman earned his BSc in Conservation and Resources Studies in 1984, MSc in Energy and Resources in 1989, and PhD in Environmental Health Sciences in 1997, all from UC Berkeley. Earlier in his career, he held research scientist positions at the California Department of Health Services' Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Branch and Environmental Health Investigations Branch. He has served as Chair of the UC Merced Department of Public Health and leads the San Joaquin Valley Center for Community Air Assessment and Injustice Reduction (SJV CC-AIR), which includes a mobile air quality laboratory funded by a $1.2 million state grant to study vehicle emissions' health effects in Stockton and Fresno.

Bradman's expertise lies in exposure assessment and epidemiology, focusing on occupational and environmental exposures—including pesticides, flame retardants, metals, emerging pollutants, VOCs, air quality, synthetic food dyes, and noise—affecting pregnant women, children, and farmworkers in agricultural communities. His CHAMACOS study has produced seminal publications such as 'Prenatal exposure to organophosphate pesticides and IQ in 7-year-old children' (Environmental Health Perspectives, 2011), 'Exposures of children to organophosphate pesticides and their potential adverse health effects' (Environmental Health Perspectives, 1999), 'Organophosphate pesticide exposure and neurodevelopment in young Mexican-American children' (Environmental Health Perspectives, 2007), and 'In Utero and Childhood Polybrominated Diphenyl Ether (PBDE) Exposures and Neurodevelopment in the CHAMACOS Study' (Environmental Health Perspectives, 2012). Awards include the US EPA Children’s Environmental Health Excellence Award (2007), California Department of Pesticide Regulation IPM Innovators Award (2013), and Switzer Environmental Fellowship (1996). Bradman chaired the California Biomonitoring Scientific Guidance Panel, served on the USDA National Organic Standards Board (2017-2022), sat on the editorial board of the Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology, and was appointed to the Pesticide Regulation Advisory Committee in 2026. His work advances policy through community-engaged research and collaborations with agencies, universities, and organizations like the Central California Asthma Collaborative.