Kristin Knox, PhD

Dr. Kristin Knox joined Silent Spring in June 2019 with a background in data science. Her initial work concentrated on evaluating the efficacy of California’s landmark right-to-know law, Proposition 65. This included repurposing a dataset collected by the California Air Resources Board to regulate smog, using the data to instead evaluate the presence of volatile carcinogens and reproductive/developmental toxicants in consumer products. In another branch of this research, Dr. Knox analyzed NHANES biomonitoring data from the CDC to evaluate the impact of Prop 65 on population-level toxic exposures, comparing California to the rest of the United States, as well as trends over time.

In recent work, Dr. Knox has sought to understand occupational exposures to chemicals relevant to breast cancer, with a particular focus on immigrant women. She is part of multiple teams using both targeted and non-targeted techniques to evaluate breast cancer-relevant occupational exposures among house cleaners, home care aides, hospital workers, and nurses as part of Silent Spring Institute’s Women Workers Biomonitoring Collaborative.

Dr. Knox is also currently undertaking metabolomics analyses of PFAS data from the Massachusetts PFAS and Your Health Study, to increase our understanding of how PFAS exposures impact biological pathways in the body.

Dr. Knox holds a PhD in Business Economics, as well as master’s and bachelor’s degrees in Economics, from Harvard University. Dr. Knox's training in economics gives her a great appreciation for the importance of data. She is working to apply these skills to conduct quantitative analyses of exposure patterns and predictors, both to increase understanding of health risks and to reduce exposures.

In her spare time, Dr. Knox loves to cook and to travel with her family.

Learn more about Dr. Knox's research and activities on her ORCiD profile.