Hunt, Vilma R.

Dentist, scientist, researcher, writer, environmental activist and feminist, Vilma Rose (Dalton-Webb) Hunt was born in 1926 in Sydney, Australia. She received her A.M. in physical anthropology from Radcliffe College (1958) and was a scholar at the Radcliffe Institute for Independent Study (1961-1963). Affiliated with the Harvard School of Public Health (1962-1966), Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois (1963), and the John B. Pierce Foundation Laboratory in New Haven, Conn. (1966-1969), Hunt taught environmental health at Yale University School of Medicine (1967-1969) and Pennsylvania State University (1969-1972 and 1982-1985). During the 1970s she was Deputy Assistant Administrator for Health Research in the Office of Research and Development in the Environmental Protection Agency and served on the EPA's Science Advisory Board. Since her retirement from PSU in 1985 she has served as a consultant in environmental and occupational health, lecturing widely both in the United States and abroad. She is the author of The Health of Women at Work (1977).

Vilma Rose Hunt was born in Sydney, Australia in 1926. She received her bachelor in dental surgery (BDS) degree from the University of Sydney before coming to the United States and earning her master's degree in physical anthropology from Radcliffe College in 1958. She also completed training in radiation biology at the Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois in 1963. Hunt worked as a researcher at the Radcliffe Institute for Independent Study from 1961 to 1963, and for the Harvard School of Public Health from 1963 to 1966. She taught environmental health at Yale University School of Medicine from 1967 to 1969, when she came to Penn State's College of Human Development. She retired from Penn State in 1985. From 1978 to 1979 Hunt served on the Science Advisory Board of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and from 1979 to 1981 she served as Deputy Assistant Administrator for Health Research in the Office of Research and Development in the EPA. As such, she worked with government officials and other scientists on several controversial environmental health issues, including Love Canal and Three Mile Island. Hunt's research interests included environmental pollution's effect on infant mortality and adolescent respiratory health; the effects of chemicals on workers; and the effects of hazardous work conditions on pregnant women. She authored The Health of Women at Work in 1977.