Professional Profile
Dr. Jonathan Urban is a Managing Scientist with ToxStrategies, Inc., in Austin, Texas. Dr. Urban is a board-certified toxicologist with 15 years’ experience studying and evaluating the potential health effects of a wide range of environmental and occupational chemicals of concern, food-related compounds, and consumer product ingredients and contaminants. He specializes in the use of evidence-based methods in support of hazard and risk assessment and is involved in the firm’s integration of these methods in the safety assessment development process. He has played an integral role in the firm’s efforts to develop and apply comprehensive systematic review methods for chemical risk assessment, with experience in all aspects of systematic review (problem formulation, PECO development, literature identification and screening, use of critical appraisal tools for evaluating studies for risk of bias and external validity, as well as qualitative and quantitative evidence integration). Dr. Urban has used this expertise in the development of critiques and recommendations regarding health-based toxicity criteria for both state and federal regulatory agencies, industry, and private-sector stakeholders. Dr. Urban also has extensive experience in conducting both screening-level and complex site-specific risk assessments to quantify human health risks and has developed a comprehensive knowledge base on a variety of regulatory guidance documents on human health risk assessment. This experience has also facilitated work with regulatory agencies and potentially responsible parties on developing site cleanup standards. Dr. Urban also has experience in the drug development and food safety sectors, providing oversight for GLP and non-GLP studies in support of the FDA’s pre-IND application process for biological pharmaceuticals and conducting GRAS reviews for food additives, respectively.
Dr. Urban is a Diplomate of the American Board of Toxicology, is a member of the Scientific Review Panel for the National Library of Medicine’s Hazardous Substance Databank, has published academic and professional studies in the peer-reviewed literature, and is a reviewer for various scientific journals. While earning his Ph.D. in toxicology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Dr. Urban served as an enlisted communications specialist in the United States Marine Corps Reserves (Communications Company, Greensboro, NC).