Patrick Hurbain, Ph.D., is an environmental epidemiologist working with Judy Chow, John Watson, and Xiaoliang Wang in the Environmental Analysis Facility. He worked as a technician at DRI between 2013 and 2019 before leaving to complete a Ph.D. at the University of Nevada, Reno. He returned to DRI as a postdoctoral researcher in September 2024. While in graduate school, Hurbain worked on a project with Yeongkwon Son examining environmental exposures in young children in the Reno area.
In the following interview, Hurbain discusses how his childhood in Stead influenced his career trajectory, his new study published in Environmental Science & Technology, and his hopes for bringing the chili cook-off back to DRI.
DRI: Tell us about your background and what brought you to DRI.
Hurbain: I always wanted to come back to DRI, because as a lab tech, you get to play with all the fun equipment, but you don’t really get a chance to fund your own studies until you have the credential. So, this was like a dream opportunity–when I saw the posting, I literally jumped for joy.
We have all the expertise and equipment at DRI to really check our methods and make sure they’re valid. DRI’s infrastructure is top of the line, cutting edge. So, when I want to look at an exposure that I think is causing a disease or related to disease–it’s here. I can do everything here. I don’t have to outsource it to expensive contractors. And then I know it’s valid, because I can literally go and see the lab and see what’s going on.
DRI: How did you originally become interested in environmental epidemiology?
Hurbain: I grew up in the lower income, rural part of Stead next to the airport, and it wasn’t until I was 18 and went to UNR for my bachelor’s degree that I realized that not everybody’s sick. Everyone that I grew up with was lower income, and we lived in old military housing out there next to the Stead dump and the Stead airport. And those houses had old infrastructure typical of the 1950s. Most of the kids I played with were sick with either asthma or something else. That was my normal. And then I went to college and realized that not only does not everybody smoke, but also people weren’t all sick. It was eye opening.
DRI: What are some of the big research questions you’re interested in?
Hurbain: My interests are really broad, but I’m really looking at the relationship between environmental exposure and health. My big focus is air, because in just three minutes without air, you die, and if you’re deprived of clean air for long enough, mere minutes, you can start to have organ damage. If you live in a really polluted area, it can lead to localized or functional hypoxia, especially if you’re a vulnerable asthmatic. So, air quality is very important. I’m also interested in water quality, and I want to look at emerging compounds of concern, including PFAS. I’m also interested in heavy metals and anthropogenic effects.
DRI: What are some projects that you’re working on?
Hurbain: I have some proposals to study the disease profile in Reno. I have a lot of environmental data, but it doesn’t match the disease profile how I’d expect. So, what’s going on? My running hypothesis is it’s not just that there’s air pollution, it’s the specific pollutants in the air. We’ve done a lot of research in the Environmental Analysis Facility looking at not just the overall air pollution levels, but the source apportionment, or where the pollution is coming from. And I noticed that the freeway is a nice little hot spot for a lot of respiratory disease and cancer prevalence in Reno. According to the CDC data I got, the highest cancer prevalence was 16% for Reno, which is pretty high. Reno is a great location for this type of study, because it’s home, but also because we get winter inversions, we get dust storms, we get extreme air pollution events. So, that’s the big project that I’m hoping to get funded.
I also want to utilize this new instrument we got, the photoionization time-of-flight mass spectrometer. It’s coupled to the Carbon Analyzer, developed by John and Judy, and we can get the amount of organic matter or carbon coming off the air. We’ll get the wavelength data so we can see where it’s absorbing light, which is indicative of what’s in the carbon as it comes off. We can also get the bioaerosol contribution, so the viruses, bacteria, and fungi that are present in the air. I’m hoping to use it to study bioaerosols, because when we get big wildfires, there’s a large pollen load from burning trees, but there’s also bacteria and viruses carried in the smoke. The potential and implications for public health are quite significant!
DRI: What research are you most proud of?
Hurbain: My new study in Environmental Science & Technology. This paper was really difficult, because the methodology was so complicated. I wanted to see who has the highest cancer risk from air pollution, because you can’t pick what air you breathe, and whether conditions are improving or worsening through time. The math surgery on all that is absolutely crazy, but the finding was also a bummer. I found that as communities start to become less white and more Black, or lower income, the cancer risk from air pollution starts to go up. And it gets really extreme the lower the income gets. So, as you go into places like what they call “Cancer Alley” in Louisiana, that was a big glowing hot spot. And when you look at who’s living there, most people there are poor, and it’s a majority Hispanic and Black population. The cancer risk from air toxics one year was around 2,000 per million–that’s really high. The usual acceptable risk level is one per million, which is what’s considered the acceptable risk for having an industrial society.
DRI: What do you want your DRI colleagues to know about you?
Hurbain: I love collaborating anywhere that I can, and I’m always interested in everything. If you need statistical work, you can come to me–that’s kind of what I specialize in, spatial statistical methods with a health focus. I have broad interests, always surrounding health outcomes, but anything involving water, soil, air, I’m interested in. Come find me, and let’s have a chat.
DRI: What do you like to do outside of work?
Hurbain: We have a golden retriever, named Winnie–like Winnie the Pooh–and we love to take her for hikes. When we can, we’ll hike in ten miles and set up a tent in the National Forest for the night. I also hunt and fish with my dad and have a garden.
DRI: If you could recommend one book to your colleagues, what would it be?
Hurbain: I am currently going through Lord of the Rings again, but I’m also into reading philosophy books at the moment. I went through Eckhart Tolle and all the different religious perspectives, and now I’m reading Carl Jung. It’s really interesting, I like studying religion and philosophy just for fun.
DRI: Is there anything else you want to share?
Hurbain: I’m trying to get the chili cook-off back! We used to do a chili cook off, where we could all bring chili and have a fun little social event. So, if you’re interested in it, let me know! I’m trying to get that going again with HR.
