Dr. Ryan is an interdisciplinary scientist in immunology and toxicology. Dr. Ryan received her PhD in Toxicology from the University of Pittsburgh’s Graduate School of Public Health, Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, studying the tumor necrosis factor (TNF) response from inhaled endotoxin-containing organic dusts in her newly developed guinea pig and mouse models for TNF induction by inhaled cotton dust. She was also the first to show that alveolar macrophages were primed for an enhanced TNF response to endotoxin (lipopolysaccharides (LPS)) following inhalation of organic dusts. Prior to that, she received a BS in Microbiology from Penn State and a MS in Medical Microbiology at West Virginia University Medical School. She then went to complete a fellowship in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine and in Immunology at Harvard Medical School/Massachusetts General Hospital studying the transcriptional and translational regulation of TNF in alveolar macrophages. In 1995, she took on the role of Research Biologist and Principal Investigator at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Immunotoxicology Branch, studying TNF production following ultraviolet radiation exposure and influenza infection. There, she focused on the pathogenesis of influenza virus following exposure to environmental insults. During this time, she began to be interested in beta-defensin-2 induction by LPS and how air pollutant particulate matter inhibited this antimicrobial peptide at the transcription level, discovering a major mechanism of inhibition of host defense. She also finished several research articles on influenza pathogenesis. In 1998, the EPA assigned her to be a Regional Science Advisor for its Office of Research and Development Office of Science Policy in Region 2 and in Washington, D.C. where she continued to work on air pollution and children’s health issues covering asthma, and lead and pesticide exposure. In 2000, she re-entered research as an Assistant Professor at New Jersey Medical School’s Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, studying the newly discovered plasmacytoid dendritic cells (PDC) and other dendritic cells in the lung. In 2003, she started her own laboratory in the Department of Oral Biology in New Jersey Dental School, studying the role of beta-defensins in the airway in vivo. In 2008, she joined New Jersey Medical School at Rutgers University at the Public Health Research Institute as Assistant Professor to study human beta-defensin-1 (hBD-1) induction in the newly discovered plasmacytoid dendritic cells (PDC), discovering that enveloped viruses, including influenza, can induce hBD-1 in monocytes and PDCs and that BD-1 was protective against influenza virus in a mouse model of influenza. She also continued to study the effects of air pollution particulate matter on induction of beta-defensins following bacterial stimulation with both Gram (+) and Gram (-) bacteria. Moving on to the University of Florida in 2013 and collaborating with Dr. Gill Diamond, she helped to test antimicrobial peptide mimetics and peptoids against Candida species. She also collaborated with Dr. Sarah Glover, now Division Chief of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at Tulane Medical Center on immunological diseases of the GI tract. From 2019 – 2021, during the Covid-19 Pandemic, she became Associate Manager of Inhalation Toxicology and the Established Portfolio in Global Safety Assurance for Reckitt-Benckiser, the manufacturers of Lysol and other antimicrobial household products.