10 Questions With… Robyn Tanguay, Distinguished Professor, environmental and molecular toxicology, and head of the Tanguay Lab
What originally brought you to Oregon State?
I arrived at Oregon State University in 2003, trading the Rocky Mountains of Colorado for the rain-soaked Willamette Valley, to join the Department of Environmental and Molecular Toxicology and direct the Sinnhuber Aquatic Research Laboratory (SARL). What drew me in was the rare chance to build and lead a dedicated aquatic toxicology facility and to grow an ambitious environmental health research program from the ground up. It was clear that OSU was open for me to pursue a vision for large-scale, innovative toxicology, and I wanted to be part of shaping that future.
What made you switch paths from medical school to research?
People sometimes assume I started on a premed track and then “switched” to research, but my path was more straightforward than that. I earned a BA B.A. in biology, followed by a Ph.D. in biochemistry and postdoctoral training in developmental toxicology, committing early to a career built around discovery science. Although I was accepted into medical school, my training at City of Hope and UC Riverside deepened my fascination with how molecules shape biology, and I realized that I was most energized by asking fundamental questions rather than practicing clinical medicine.
What makes you passionate about higher education?
When I joined OSU, I quickly found myself not only running a lab but also stepping into leadership roles as a director of programs such as the Superfund Research Program and SARL, as well as NIH training programs. Those positions are inseparable from mentoring: they involve building teams, training graduate students and postdocs and creating environments where people can grow into independent scientists. I care deeply about helping people recognize that their choices, not a single title or identity, shape their path. To me, higher education is less about transmitting information and more about giving people the tools and confidence to design their own trajectories.
How did zebrafish become such a prominent part of your work, and why are they so critical to understanding toxicology?
As a postdoctoral scholar, I proposed that zebrafish were a way to completely rethink how we do toxicology. They are small, transparent, genetically tractable vertebrates that develop quickly, which means we can observe development in real time while testing hundreds to thousands of chemicals using relatively few animals. In my lab, zebrafish have become a platform to connect chemical structure to in- vivo biological activity. This provides an integrated systems toxicology approach that lets us measure morphology, behavior and other phenotypes across many concentrations in just days.
This approach is especially powerful for complex chemical classes such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), flame retardants, pesticides and PFAS, where structure–activity relationships are anything but obvious. We routinely see compounds that look nearly identical on paper behave very differently in vivo, and zebrafish give us the resolution to understand why. By marrying chemical structure with rich biological readouts, we can prioritize hazardous chemicals, uncover mechanisms and point toward safer alternatives.
What advice would you give the younger version of yourself who was just starting college?
You don’t need to have your identity or your career fully defined right away. The decisions you make over time, the opportunities you say yes to, and the communities you choose to join will shape who you become. I’d tell myself to stay open to discovering what I’m good at and what I care about, to seek out people who inspire, listen and support growth. Work hard, be patient and enjoy this iterative growth process.
What is the potential economic benefit of your work with zebrafish?
Beyond the science itself, the zebrafish platform has concrete economic and societal benefits. By rapidly screening large numbers of chemicals and mixtures, we can prioritize which ones warrant additional expensive and time-consuming studies, and which ones appear safer. This kind of triage can lower the cost and duration of safety assessment for regulators and industry, reduce late-stage failures in product development and support safer-by-design chemistry strategies. When applied across the vast universe of existing and emerging chemicals, those efficiencies translate into substantial economic value and tangible public health benefits.
What was your favorite course in college?
As an undergraduate biology major at California State University at San Bernardino, I was especially drawn to classes that helped me connect biology and chemistry such as the biochemistry courses and labs. I was also deeply impacted by several philosophy courses. Those courses quietly laid the groundwork for the questions that still drive my work today: How do chemicals interact with living systems, and how can we use that knowledge to prevent harm rather than simply document it after the fact?
How does mentorship play a role in your work?
Today, I direct a large, multidisciplinary research enterprise that includes the Superfund Research Program and the Sinnhuber Aquatic Research Laboratory, an ecosystem that relies on undergraduates, graduate students, postdocs, staff and junior faculty working together. Mentorship is not a side activity in this context; it is the engine that keeps science moving. I aim to mentor by immersion: bringing people into ambitious, collaborative projects where they have genuine ownership, access to cutting-edge tools and visibility for their contributions.
Do you partner with researchers in other fields and how does that impact the work you do in the lab?
The questions we ask in my lab can’t be answered by toxicology alone, and that’s by design. Our work lives at the interface of chemistry, engineering, exposure science and data science. These collaborations allow us to pair zebrafish data with advanced analytics, modeling and risk assessment, turning raw biological responses into information that regulators, industry and public health officials can use. In the end, the goal is simple: to make our science not only interesting, but actionable.
What is your favorite nonacademic pursuit or passion?
Probably the most difficult question to answer. I enjoy being with family and traveling.
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