Midwest Lead Summit 2025
Midwest Lead Summit 2025 | Sept. 9, 2025 | Virtual Conference via Zoom
Virtual Registration*: Free
Join us for the 2025 Midwest Lead Summit! This online gathering, scheduled for September 9th, will bring together public health experts, policymakers, and community leaders to address pressing issues surrounding lead exposure and public health across the Midwest. Participants can look forward to interactive presentations, breakout discussion rooms, and valuable networking opportunities—all from the comfort of their own spaces.
Presenters will include representatives from federal, state, local agencies, and organizations with a focus on the states of Missouri, Nebraska, Iowa, and Kansas.
- Engage with leading researchers, including David Cwiertny, Director of the Center for Health Effects of Environmental Contamination at Iowa State University.
- Hear the latest updates on regional Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Programs.
- Discover how to reduce human exposure to lead in soil, particularly in relation to brownfields, lead abatement, and community development, presented by Dr. Ganga Hettiarachchi from the K-State Soil and Environmental Chemistry department.
- Stay updated on efforts to monitor lead levels in drinking water, with a focus on water quality and the latest research on sampling methods.
- Listen to a conversation about preparing public health professionals with Lynelle Phillips, the Education Director for Public Health in Extension at the University of Missouri.
- Learn about the latest best practices and policies related to lead health and home safety with Ryan Allenbrand, Environmental Hygienist and Program Manager of the Healthy Homes Program at Children’s Mercy.
- Participate in a facilitated discussion on overcoming barriers in lead programs, ensuring your voice contributes to future initiatives.
- And More!
Don't miss this opportunity to connect with fellow lead stakeholders, learn from experts in the field, and explore ways to collaborate on creating safer and healthier communities!
The Midwest Lead Summit will address lead topics in Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska, but all are welcome to attend! Register today!
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Agenda
The Summit Welcome will establish the tone for the day's presentations and emphasize the significance of collaborating across state lines to create a safer, healthier future.
"Lead in drinking water: Overlooked sources and vulnerable consumers"
David Cwiertny, Director, Center for Health Effects of Environmental Contamination
High profile lead in drinking water crises have resulted in efforts to eliminate exposure risks through improved testing requirements and removal of sources, including lead service lines. However, there remain challenges in identifying lead sources in the home and developing comprehensive monitoring that catches the exposure risk for all consumers, including those most vulnerable.
This talk will look at lead in drinking water through a series of complementary projects attempting to address these gaps to better understand lead sources and currently overlooked, vulnerable consumer groups.
In collaboration with researchers at Michigan State and Virginia Tech, we have been looking at how the presence of lead in homes, either as a lead service line or in premise plumbing, can be predicted using the distribution of metals present in water samples. Other work will focus on the unexpected occurrence of lead in purchased water supplies, including water dispensed from free-standing vending machines or kiosks.
Lastly, we will consider exposure risk to residents in manufactured housing communities, which are often-overlooked drinking water consumers with limited oversight of their water quality. All results will be placed in the context of recent efforts by the US EPA to better address lead in water through the Lead and Copper Rule Improvements.
10-minute break
Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program & Program Updates
Presenters:
- Teresa Wortmann, RN – Missouri Department of Health and Human Services
- Jessica Willard – Kansas Department of Health and Environment
- Brian Coyle – Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services
- Amanda Beckett, MPH – Iowa Health and Human Services
After presentations from the Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program speakers, attendees will break out into small groups by state for Q&A sessions and state-specific discussions.
We will pause the virtual meeting for lunch and reconvene at 12:45 pm, re-energized for more presentations and breakout discussions.
We will return to the virtual summit and warm up our thinking caps with a fun game of trivia!
Attendees will choose a breakout session to attend based on the topic that is most interesting to them.
Breakout room topics:
-
Lessons Learned from Mississippi’s Sip Safe Program, Justin Palmer, Mississippi State University Extension
- Preparing Public Health Professional with Universities, Lynelle Phillips, MPH, RN, Education Director for Public Health in Extension, University of Missouri
- Raising Public Health Issues in Hispanic Communities, Dr. Drew Colcher, Wichita State University
Participate in a facilitated discussion on overcoming barriers in lead programs, ensuring your voice contributes to future initiatives.
Attendees will choose a breakout session to attend based on the topic that is most interesting to them.
Breakout room topics:
- Lead Service Lines: Chemistry and Water Quality, Dr. Edward Peltier
- Reducing Human Exposure to Lead in Soil, Dr. Ganga Hettiarachchi, K-State Soil and Environmental Chemistry
- Children’s Mercy Healthy Homes Program, Ryan Allenbrand, MS, CIEC, HHS, Environmental Hygienist, Program Manager of Health Homes at Children’s Mercy
We will meet in the main room to summarize our discussions and review the key takeaways from today's meeting.
* Due to overwhelming demand for virtual attendance, we have decided to cancel the in-person summit and transition to a completely virtual format.
Speakers
David Cwiertny
David Cwiertny, Director, Center for Health Effects of Environmental Contamination
Dr. David Cwiertny is the William D. Ashton Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) and a Professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Iowa (UI). His research broadly focuses on water quality and water treatment, with particular interests at the intersection of public health and policy. At UI, he directs the State-funded Center for Health Effects of Environmental Contamination (CHEEC), which conducts research to identify, measure, and prevent adverse health outcomes from exposure to environmental contaminants. In 2016, he served as a Congressional Fellow for the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), working in the U.S. House of Representatives on the Committee for Energy and Commerce. He previously served as the founding Editor-in-Chief of Environmental Science: Water Research & Technology, a Royal Society journal. David holds a BS in Environmental Engineering Science and a minor in Chemistry from U.C. Berkeley (2000), and a PhD in Environmental Engineering from Johns Hopkins University (2006).
Brian Coyle
Brian Coyle, MPH, Program Manager II, Epidemiology Unit, Nebraska Department of Health
and Human Services
Brian Coyle has worked for almost 18 years in public health in Nebraska starting in
the Chronic Disease Prevention and Control Program and transitioned to the lead poisoning
prevention program. He has served for the last three years as the Health Program Manager
for the Nebraska Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program (NeCLPPP) and recently transitioned to a new role as a Program Manager II in the Epidemiology Unit. His experience and expertise include CDC grant planning and management, fostering key partnerships at the state
and local levels to complete strategic objectives, and aligning local interventions to ensure the health and safety of all Nebraskans,
especially for children and families.
Jessica Willard
Jessica Willard, Environmental Health Epidemiology and Surveillance Section Chief, Kansas Department of Health and Environment
Jessica Willard is the Environmental Health Epidemiology and Surveillance Section Chief at the Kansas Department of Health and Environment. She has worked for both the Division of Environment and the Division of Public Health for 18 years. In that role, she has supervised the Kansas Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program since 2018 when KDHE was awarded the CDC grant.
Dr. Drew Colcher
Dr. Drew Colcher, Wichita State University
Drew Colcher (PhD) is program manager for Alce su Voz at Wichita State University. He received his PhD
in Hispanic Linguistics from the University of Texas at Austin in 2025, and his MA
in English Literature from Wichita State University in 2019.
Dr. Colcher’s work focuses on the sociolinguistics of Spanish in the U.S. and on addressing material inequalities created by ethnolinguistic discrimination, especially in health care and education. He has published in scholarly journals, academic volumes, and a compendium of Spanish creative writing, and he is co-author of the book Health Disparities and the Applied Linguist.
Lynelle Phillips
Lynelle Phillips, RN, MPH, Associate Teaching Professor, Department of Public Health, College of Health Sciences, University of Missouri
Lynelle Phillips received her RN in 1989 and MPH in 1992 and has worked for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in areas including environmental health, immunizations, and tuberculosis control. She also worked at the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services as a nurse consultant and CDC field assignee to the tuberculosis program, and she has consulted for the Heartland National TB Center. She is currently serving as Associate Teaching Professor for the Department of Public Health in MU’s College of Health Science and teaches epidemiology, ethics, and environmental health courses for both the undergraduate and MPH programs.
Dr. Ted Peltier
Dr. Edward Peltier, Associate Dean of Academic Affairs and a Professor of Environmental Engineering at the University of Kansas School of Engineering
Ted Peltier is the Associate Dean of Academic Affairs and a Professor of Environmental Engineering at the University of Kansas School of Engineering, where he has taught since 2006. He holds a B.S. degree in Chemical Engineering from Princeton University and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Northwestern University. His research areas include the chemistry and fate of metal contaminants in natural and engineering systems, monitoring and assessment of emerging pollutants, including microplastics and PFAS compounds, and innovative strategies for treatment and management of produced water and other high-salinity wastewaters. He co-authored a 2017 Water Research Foundation report evaluating the use of lining and coating technologies as an alternative to lead service line replacement.
This project has been funded wholly or in part by the United States Environmental Protection Agency under a cooperative agreement with the Environmental Finance Center at Wichita State University. The contents of this website do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Environmental Protection Agency, nor does the EPA endorse trade names or recommend the use of commercial products mentioned.