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William D. Wagner Award

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2025 William D. Wagner Awardee

The William D. Wagner Award, established in 2003, is presented annually to a person in the field of national and international worker health and safety who is an outstanding example of commitment and dedication to the creation and dissemination of occupational exposure values (OEVs).

The 2025 William D. Wagner Award recipient is David H. Sliney, PhD.

Dr. Sliney received his PhD in biophysics and medical physics from the University College London, Institute of Ophthalmology.  He was a Program Manager at the US Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine until his retirement in 2007, and served as an associate faculty member of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health from 1980 to 2021.  He was a charter member of the ACGIH Physical Agents TLV Committee (1966) and served as its Chair for more than a decade. He was a member of the International Non-Ionizing Radiation Committee of IRPA from 1980 to 2000, and a member of ICNIRP from 2001-2016.  He also served as President of the Laser Institute of America in 1992 and as President of the American Society for Photobiology during 2008-2009.  His research interests focus on subjects related to sunlight, UV effects upon the eye, optical hazards from intense light sources and lasers, laser-tissue interactions, and laser applications in medicine and surgery. He has also served on other non-ionizing (RF) committees.  He has been a member of ASC Z136 since its beginning (1968) and serves as convenor of WG-1/IEC TC76 on lasers. He was coauthor of a well-known, 1,000-page handbook, Safety with Lasers and Other Optical Sources (1980), Springer and co-author of Medical Lasers and Their Safe Use, Springer, 1993.  He has published well over 150 peer-reviewed scientific papers. He has been active in promoting safe use of lasers, intense light sources, infrared radio-frequency and germicidal ultraviolet.  He has served as chair of several standards committees related to lasers, ultraviolet and optical radiation.  Dr. Sliney chairs the IES Photobiology Committee.  He was a Fulbright Scholar to Yugoslavia in 1977 and received the Wilkening Award and the Schawlow Award from the LIA as well as the Award for Distinguished Scientific Achievement from the Health Physics Society in 2009, the US Department of the Army Distinguished Service Award, and the Mark Memorial Award from the American Society for Laser Medicine and Surgery in 2016.  Dr. Sliney was also awarded Special Recognition by ACGIH for Extraordinary Service, 1997.

Ref.  Sliney, D. H., “The ACGIH Physical Agents Committee:  History,” Applied Industrial Hygiene 3(10):  F‑23‑25 (October 1988).

 

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