First Chemistry Speaker Series For AY 202-2021

Dr. Benika C. Dixon is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Texas A&M University School of Public Health. In her current position, she oversees logistics for COVID-19 testing and surveillance for the Texas A&M University System and conducts COVID-19 related research. She is the lead for an NSF funded COVID-19 Working Group for Public Health and Social Sciences Research focused on COVID-19 and Black Communities.  Dr. Dixon also continues to work with Texas A&M University’s Institute for Sustainable Communities focusing on several interdisciplinary environmental and hazard-based researcher projects. She holds a DrPH in Epidemiology and Environmental Health from Texas A&M University and a Master of Public Health from Southern Connecticut State University. She completed her BS in Chemistry at Spelman College in Atlanta, GA. Her dissertation research focused on the health and environmental risk perceptions of residential creosote exposure.

Dr. Dixon has worked in several different capacities in the field of public health emergency preparedness (PHEP) including PHEP Epidemiologist with the Austin Public Health Department in Austin, TX, PHEP Planner with Baltimore City Health Department in Baltimore, MD and as a Health Planner with the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (MWCOG) in Washington, DC. Her primary research interests include disaster epidemiology, environmental epidemiology, and environmental justice. Dr. Dixon is a Founding Fellow of the William Averette Anderson Fund, whose mission is to expand the number of historically underrepresented professionals in the field of disaster and hazard research and practice.