Abstract
Petia Petrova Simeonova passed away on December 16, 2009 after a long and brave battle with cancer. She worked many years in the area of immunotoxicology, providing many valuable scientific contributions on asbestos, arsenic and most recently nanaomaterials and cardiovascular disease. Petia was born on January 9, 1962 in Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria. Her father was a pediatrician, and her mother was an agronomist. She received her MD degree in Human Medicine, 1979-1985, from the Medical University, Varna, Bulgaria, and her PhD in Molecular Biology and Immunology, 1987-1990, from the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia, Bulgaria working in the area of autoimmune diseases. From 1985 to 1993 she worked consecutively as a physician in a Pediatric Department Intensive Care Hospital; researcher, at the Institute of Immunology, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences; physician/research scientist, Clinical Immunology, Medical University, Sofia, Bulgaria. She then moved to the United States and completed her post-doctoral training in immunotoxicology, 1993-1996, at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), NIH, Research Triangle Park, NC, with Mike Luster. Since 1996 she worked consecutively as a senior scientist, project leader, and team leader at the Health Effects Laboratory Division, NIOSH, Morgantown, WV where she directed a lab with 5 staff. She was an accomplished, internationally recognized scientist with numerous publications in immunotoxicology and was frequently cited in the scientific literature. Her research contributions have been recognized by several prestigious scientific awards, including two Alice Hamilton Awards for Excellence in Occupational Safety and Health, and several nominations for the Charles Shepard Award with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Petia leaves a husband who is still working at NIOSH and a son, Kami, who is an undergraduate at Stanford majoring in medical science.
Petia was not only a colleague but a good friend to many of us in toxicology. She loved to party but liked to do laboratory research even more. For those who knew Petia, she will be greatly missed.