Nancy A. Stout Named Director of NIOSH Safety Research Division

Contact: Fred Blosser (202) 260-8519
February 24, 1997

Nancy A. Stout, Ed.D., was named director of the Division of Safety Research in the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), effective Feb. 17, 1997.

Dr. Stout formerly served as acting deputy director of the Division of Safety Research, which is located in Morgantown, W.Va., and as acting chief of the Division’s Surveillance and Field Investigations Branch. As division director, she succeeds William E. Halperin, who became deputy director of NIOSH in September 1996. Division Deputy Director Timothy J. Pizatella served as acting director in the interim.

“I am pleased to welcome Nancy to this challenging and important position,” said NIOSH Director Linda Rosenstock, M.D., M.P.H. “Nancy brings important experience as a safety professional, an administrator, and a Morgantown native with strong personal and professional ties in the local community.”

Dr. Stout received her Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees in sociology from West Virginia University and her Doctor of Education degree in quantitative methods from the WVU Department of Educational Psychology. Prior to joining NIOSH, she was research associate with the WVU Division of Resource Management. Dr. Stout joined NIOSH in 1985, where she has held several scientific and managerial positions in the Division of Safety Research. She has published extensively on occupational injury research and prevention.

The Division of Safety Research serves as the focal point for NIOSH’s national programs in occupational injury research and prevention. The division employs about 90 professional and technical staff who conduct studies to identify the causes of work-related injuries and develop protective technology and injury prevention efforts to safeguard workers.

The division operates NIOSH’s Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation program, which investigates workplace deaths from falls, machine-related incidents, and logging incidents, and provides recommendations to protect other workers at potential risk. The division also conducts epidemiologic studies of workplace injury risks and maintains state-of-the-art protective technology engineering laboratories. The division has conducted nationally recognized research on prevention of workplace violence and prevention of injury to young workers in agriculture and other industries.

NIOSH, headquartered in Washington, D.C., is part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIOSH also has offices in Atlanta, Ga., and laboratories in Cincinnati, Ohio, Bruceton, Pa., and Spokane, Wash. In addition to the Division of Safety Research, NIOSH’s Division of Respiratory Disease Studies and Health Effects Laboratory Division are located in Morgantown.