M.C. Townsend Associates, LLC |
Course Director
Mary C. Townsend, Dr. P.H.
Dr. Mary Townsend has been an Independent Spirometry and Epidemiology Consultant for industrial, government, and research clients and an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Environmental and Occupational Health at the Graduate School of Public Health, University of Pittsburgh for decades.
She has consulted for OSHA's Directorate of Standards and Guidance and helped develop the Spirometry Testing in Occupational Health Programs: Best Practices for Healthcare Professionals Guidance Document, released in 2013.
She received the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (ACOEM) Award for Health Achievement in Occupational Medicine in 2013. She is lead author of ACOEM's Position Statements on Spirometry in the Occupational Health Setting - 2020 Update and Evaluating Pulmonary Function Change Over Time in the Occupational Setting, and has been an active member of the American Thoracic Society (ATS) for over 30 years.
For decades, she has presented workshops and lectures on the interpretation and pitfalls of Spirometry in the Occupational Setting at annual ACOEM meetings, both at the national and regional levels. She has presented Pre-Conference NIOSH-Approved Spirometry Refresher Courses before the conferences of American Association of Occupational Health Nurses (AAOHN) and she presented frequent Sunrise Seminars for the American Thoracic Society (ATS) on "Real-world spirometry: Avoiding technical pitfalls and choosing an interpretation algorithm." She currently reviews manuscripts for the ATS blue journal AJRCCM Editorial Board and formerly for the Chest Editorial Board; she was named one of the top 5% of Chest reviewers for 2009, based on the number of papers reviewed and the timeliness and quality of the reviews.
Dr. Townsend is an experienced, enthusiastic teacher of NIOSH-Approved Spirometry and Spirometry Refresher courses. Her goal is to teach not only what the recommendations and requirements are for conducting tests and interpreting results, but also why the recommendations and requirements were developed. She has been course director for M.C. Townsend Associates, LLC for 35 years as well as for the Johns Hopkins Education and Research Center for Occupational Safety and Health (ERC) for 20 years.
For more than 30 years, she has taught health professionals how to conduct spirometry tests, designed spirometry quality assurance programs, and provided consulting services for numerous research, industrial, and health care clients. Her clients have included Kimberly Clark, General Motors, Dow Chemical Corporation, BASF, Alcoa, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the U.S. Library of Congress, the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), and numerous other industrial clients and government agencies.
Before working as an Independent Consultant, she worked as a NIOSH Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) Visiting Scientist and Research Epidemiologist, and as an Assistant Professor of Epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh.