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Rager Lab

Julia E. Rager, PhD, MSEE

Julia Rager is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering (ESE) at the University of North Carolina (ºÚÁÏÍø)’s Gillings School of Global Public Health.Ìý

 

 

 

Research Interests

The overarching goal of our research is to unravel relationships between environmental exposures and health outcomes, with a focus on complex mixtures at growing prevalence in the environment. We uniquely address this goal by coupling advanced in silico methods with molecular toxicology approaches to evaluate environmental mixtures. Major themes of our current research include the following:Ìý

  1. Mixtures modeling to identify ‘bad actors’ in the atmosphere.Ìý
  2. Evaluating extracellular vesicles as novel mediators of human diseaseÌý
  3. Translating exposure science and toxicology into risk assessment and policy decision making.Ìý
  4. Developing and disseminating training for computational research in environmental healthÌý

For more information surrounding the Rager Lab’s research, team members, and background, please see her team’s parent website (link to: )Ìý

 

Current Lab Personnel

Hadley Hartwell, MS, Laboratory ManagerÌý
Kyle Roell, PhD, Data Analyst and Project ManagerÌý
Alexis Payton, MS, Research Data AnalystÌý
Celeste Carberry, PhD, Research Program ManagerÌý

 

Post-Doctoral FellowsÌý
Elise Hickman, PhD, Postdoctoral ResearchÌý
Jessie Chappel, PhD, Postdoctoral ResearchÌý

Doctoral TraineesÌý
Lauren Koval, Graduate StudentÌý
Sarah Miller, Graduate StudentÌý
Chloe Chou, Graduate StudentÌý
Allison Spring, Graduate StudentÌý

Undergraduate StudentsÌý
Victoria Carberry, Undergraduate StudentÌý
Ellie Jiang, Undergraduate StudentÌý
Kai Malone, Undergraduate StudentÌý
Raquel Winker, Undergraduate StudentÌý

 

Lab AlumniÌý

PhD Students
Celeste Carberry, PhD 2024Ìý

Masters StudentsÌý
Elena McDermott, MSPH 2023Ìý
Alexis Payton, MS 2021Ìý

Undergraduate StudentsÌý
Lauren Simendinger, 2023Ìý
Deepak Keshava, 2022Ìý
Toby Turla, 2021Ìý
Alexis Payton, 2022Ìý
Celeste Carbery, 2020Ìý

 

Publications

To see a complete list of Dr. Julia E. Rager’s publications, see her Google Scholar (link: )Ìý or PubMed listing (link: )Ìý

Example key publications relevant to CEMALB initiatives include the following:Ìý

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  1. Winker R*, Payton A#, Brown E, McDermott E*, Freedman JH, Lenhardt C, Eaves LE, Fry RC, Rager JE++. Wildfires and Climate Justice: Future Wildfire Events Predicted to Disproportionally Impact Socioeconomically Vulnerable Communities in North Carolina. Front Public Health. 2024 Apr 29;12:1339700. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1339700. PMID: 38741908; PMCID: PMC11089107.Ìý
  2. Vitucci E, Carberry CK*, Payton A#, Herring LE, Mordant AL, McCullough SD, Rager JE++. Characterizing the Extracellular Vesicle Proteomic Landscape of the Human Airway Using In Vitro Organotypic Multi-Cellular Models. Cell – iScience. 2023 Oct 10;26(11):108162. doi: 10.1016/ j.isci.2023.108162. PMID: 37920665. PMCID: PMC10618692.Ìý
  3. Payton A#, Roell KR, Rebuli ME, Valdar W, Jaspers I, Rager JE++. Navigating the bridge between wet and dry lab toxicology research to address current challenges with high-dimensional data. Front Toxicol. 2023 May 26:5:1171175. doi: 10.3389/ftox.2023.1171175. PMID: 37304253; PMCID: PMC10250703Ìý
  4. Carberry CK*, Rager JE++. The Impact of Environmental Contaminants on Extracellular Vesicles and their Key Molecular Regulators: A Literature and Database-Driven Review. Environ Mol Mutagen. 2023 Jan;64(1):50-66. doi: 10.1002/em.22522. PMID: 36502378. PMCID: PMC10798145.Ìý
  5. Kim YH, Rager JE, Jaspers I, Gilmour MI. Computational Approach to Link Chemicals in Anthropogenic Smoke Particulate Matter with Toxicity. Chem Res Toxicol. 2022 Dec 19;35(12):2210-2213. doi: 10.1021/acs.chemrestox.2c00270. PMID: 36373932.Ìý
  6. Koval LE*, Carberry CK*, Kim YH, McDermott E*, Hartwell H, Jaspers I, Gilmour MI, Rager JE++. Wildfire Variable Toxicity: Identifying Biomass Smoke Exposure Groupings through Transcriptomic Similarity Scoring. Environ Sci Technol. 2022 Dec 6;56(23):17131-17142. doi: 10.1021/acs.est.2c06043. PMID: 36399130. PMCID: PMC10777820.Ìý
  7. Carberry CK*, Koval LE*, Payton A#, Hartwell H, Ho Kim Y, Smith GJ, Reif DM, Jaspers I, Ian Gilmour M, Rager JE++. Wildfires and extracellular vesicles: Exosomal microRNAs as mediators of cross-tissue cardiopulmonary responses to biomass smoke. Environ Int. 2022 Sep;167:107419. doi: 10.1016/j.envint.2022.107419. PMID: 35863239; PMCID: PMC9389917.Ìý
  8. Carberry CK*, Keshava D*, Payton A#, Smith GJ, Rager JE++. Approaches to incorporate extracellular vesicles into exposure science, toxicology, and public health research. J Expo Sci Environ Epidemiol. 2022 Sep;32(5):647-659. doi: 10.1038/s41370-022-00417-w. PMID: 35217808; PMCID: PMC9402811.Ìý
  9. Roell K#, Koval LE*, Boyles R, Patlewicz G, Ring C, Rider CV, Ward-Caviness C, Reif DM, Jaspers I, Fry RC, Rager JE++. Development of the InTelligence And Machine LEarning (TAME) Toolkit for Introductory Data Science, Chemical-Biological Analyses, Predictive Modeling, and Database Mining for Environmental Health Research. Front Toxicol. 2022 Jun 22;4:893924. doi: 10.3389/ftox.2022.893924. PMID: 35812168; PMCID: PMC9257219.Ìý
  10. Rager JE, Clark J, Eaves LA, Avula V, Niehoff NM, Kim YH, Jaspers I, Gilmour MI. Mixtures modeling identifies chemical inducers versus repressors of toxicity associated with wildfire smoke. Sci Total Environ. 2021 Jun 25;775:145759. PMID: 33611182. PMCID: PMC8243846.Ìý

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