Irina Cech, Ph.D., is Professor in the Division of Environmental and Occupational Health at the University of Texas School of Public Health in Houston. Her second affiliation is with the Division of Epidemiology at the same institution. Dr. Cech teaches and conducts research on environmental quality, chemical, biological, and radioactive contamination, hazardous waste management, the health risks related to pollution. She is particularly interested in biomarkers of human exposure to pollution. Much of her work involved investigations of the role pollution play in chronic diseases and congenital malformations. Under the sponsorship of the Centers for Disease Control through the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, she carried out a major bi national research project, looking for causes of pregnancies affected by the neural tube defects. Currently she investigates the role radioactive contamination of soil and water may play in the etiology of orofacial clefts.

Under Congressional Sciences and Engineering Fellowship award by the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences, she worked in the U.S. Congress as Special Assistant to the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. She served on the Expert Panel and the First Joint Committee of the U.S. National Academy of Science/National Research Council, Water Science and Technology Board with the Mexican Academy of Science and Engineering. She served on a number of other major national and international committees and scientific review groups, such as the U.S. Congress Office of Technology Assessment, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, the U.S. Mine and Mineral Services, the Pan American Health Organization, and the World Health Organization. In Texas, Dr. Cech served on advisory committees to the Governor, the Office of the Attorney General, and the Texas Senate, and as a delegate from the UTSPH-Houston to the UT System Valley/Border Health Services Task Force.

Dr. Cech speaks seven languages and uses these skills in sharing environmental and public health experience with cross-cultural and international audiences. Sponsored by the U.S. Information Agency and the U.S. Agency for International Development, she had lectured in Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Morocco, Slovenia, Russia, the United Arab Emirates, and the Peoples' Republic of China. She had provided technical and regulatory guidance to the emerging environmental programs in Latin America, the Mediterranean Basin countries, Northern Africa, Eastern Europe, the Baltic States, Russia, and the Far East. She has an honorary Visiting Professor appointment at the University of Cd. Juarez, Mexico. Dr. Cech directed several Texas Mexico Border outreach education projects, sponsored by United States Environmental Protection Agency.