Dr. Mielke was invited to testify before a U.S. Senate Hearing in 1984, and his expertise helped to remove 90% of the lead from gasoline in the United States in 1986.
SEATTLE, WA, August 06, 2024 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Marquis Who's Who, the world's premier publisher of biographical profiles, is proud to present Howard Mielke with the Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award. An accomplished listee, Howard Mielke celebrates many years' experience in his professional network and has been noted for achievements, leadership qualities, and the credentials and successes he has accrued in his field. As in all Marquis Who's Who biographical volumes, individuals profiled are selected on the basis of current reference value. Factors such as position, noteworthy accomplishments, visibility, and prominence in a field are all taken into account during the selection process.
A seasoned educator with years of professional expertise in health, geography, and environmental studies, Dr. Mielke excelled as a research professor in Environmental Signaling in Medicine in the Department of Pharmacology at Tulane University's School of Medicine. Previously, he was a research professor at the Tulane-Xavier Center for Bioenvironmental Research, a professor at Xavier University of Louisiana's College of Pharmacy, and a researcher for the Association of Minority Health Professional Schools. During the early stages of his career, he gained valuable expertise in similar positions with the University of Minnesota's Hubert H. Humphrey Center, Macalester College, the Waste Management Laboratory in Beltsville, Maryland, the University of Maryland Baltimore County, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, the University of California Los Angeles, and Anatolia College in Thessaloniki, Greece. Dr. Mielke also taught in Malawi at Likuni Boys Secondary School as a U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer.
Dr. Mielke has contributed to many book chapters and articles in professional journals throughout his career. In addition to coauthoring "Children, Soils, and Health: How Do Polluted Soils Influence Children's Health?" and "Lead-dust contaminated Communities and minority health: A New Paradigm," he contributed to numerous peer-reviewed articles in such journals as "Medical Research Archives," "GeoHealth," "Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene," "The Science of the Total Environment," "Environmental Health Perspectives," "Environment International," and "The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences."
An expert in his field, Dr. Mielke earned a Bachelor of Arts in biology with minors in chemistry and geography from Macalester College in 1963 and a Master of Science in biology from the University of Michigan. Subsequently, he expanded his professional knowledge by completing a Ph.D. in geography from the University of Michigan's Rackham School of Graduate Studies and applying his research as a certified environmental inspector and consultant. Driven to remain abreast of changes in the field, Dr. Mielke aligns himself with several organizations, including the American Chemical Society, the Society for Environmental Geochemistry and Health, the Society of Toxicology, and the International Society for Children's Health and the Environment. In addition to U.S. soil lead surveys in California, Maryland, Minnesota, Louisiana, Michigan, and Texas, Dr. Mielke collaborated with researchers in Norway, Peru, and China.
While his career has been filled with highlights, an early standout moment was his dissertation at the University of Michigan, where he monitored house-by-house airborne sulfur emitted into a community surrounding a cement plant in Dundee, Michigan. As a part-time researcher at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and after the health effects of lead on brain development, children's learning, and behavior became known, Dr. Mielke and his colleagues innovated a method for measuring lead and other metals in soil. He applied the method to obtain soil metal data in a pioneering garden survey in Baltimore, Maryland. The survey results noted an extreme disparity between high lead soil in the inner city, where unpainted brick and stone dwellings predominate, and low soil lead levels in gardens in outlying areas, where painted buildings predominate. Data on collective travel in various communities of Baltimore indicated that vehicle exhaust residues from lead in gasoline, as opposed to lead paint, were a massive source of lead dust contamination in urban soil. He replicated the soil lead studies in Minnesota, and his most cherished achievement was collaborating with Minnesota legislators to survey the children's blood and soil lead in various Minnesota cities. The study found strong associations between city size, soil lead, and children's blood lead in a city-by-city comparison. The results informed the Minnesota Legislature about the statewide health effects of pollution from leaded gasoline. The Legislature responded by petitioning Congress and the EPA to ban leaded gasoline. Dr. Mielke was invited to testify before a U.S. Senate Hearing in 1984, and his expertise helped to remove 90% of the lead from gasoline in the United States in 1986. The 1986 U.S. ban on 90% of leaded gasoline for fueling highway travel significantly reduced children's lead exposure in the U.S. The finding spurred an international effort to ban leaded gasoline, and a worldwide ban was completed in August 2021. Looking to the future, Dr. Mielke is continuing environmental signaling research to protect people, particularly children, from environmental toxicants.
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