ASA Impact Award

Dr. Steven Schrader led the Reproductive Health Assessment Team for the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), an agency of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), from 1983 until his retirement in 2017.

Dr. Schrader received his BS (1974), MS (1975), and PhD (1978) from the University of Missouri, undertook postdoctoral training at University of Miami, and was an assistant professor at Roosevelt University in Chicago. Upon joining NIOSH 1983, he established the male reproductive health assessment program and thereby enabled numerous occupational field investigations into exposure impacts which included ethylene dibromide, glycol ethers, lead, nickel, military radar, and numerous pesticides. Dr. Schrader’s work evaluating sexual function in bicycle police officers led to expanded research in this area for male and female bicyclists. His efforts have inspired many researchers to address how other aspects of occupational hazards affect male sexual function, and thereby providing a framework for evidence-based policy formation.

Dr. Schrader’s authority has been recognized by invitations to present his research nationally and internationally, and his research program has involved collaborations in reproductive research with universities, other federal, and international agencies. This included speaking to the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development on how endocrine disrupter chemicals can adversely impact reproductive health of men. Dr. Schrader served on the WHO workgroup that published the 5th edition of the WHO Laboratory Manual for the Examination and Processing of Human Semen. He served on the CDC workgroup that prepared the National Public Health Action Plan for the Detection, Prevention and Management of Infertility.

Dr. Schrader’s research goal in occupational studies was to have objective numerical measures that could withstand statistical rigor. There are many examples of the international impact of his research. Dr. Schrader developed a male reproductive health profile for conducting occupational field studies which he and his team used in workplaces across the United States, Canada, and Russia. He conducted a longitudinal study semen quality evaluating the within and between variation of the various semen measures. He developed an early computer digitizing method to assess sperm motility and morphometry, many of these measures are being used in current CASA machines. He became an advocate and instructor of process quality control in the Andrology Lab. During the emerging HIV epidemic in the 1980s, Dr. Schrader published Safety Guidelines for the Andrology Laboratory. In recognition of this work, he has received the Alice Hamilton Science Award for Occupational Safety and Health four times and the Bullard-Sherwood Research-to-Practice (r2p) Award. In 2017, Dr. Schrader was honored with the NIOSH Lifetime Scientific Achievement Award.

Dr. Schrader has been active in the American Society of Andrology since 1983. He has made over 60 scientific presentations at the ASA meetings. He has served on the ASA Executive Council, including as Secretary, and repeatedly on the Annual Meeting Program Committee, in 2018 as Program Co-Chair. He served on the Nominating and Endowment Committees. Dr. Schrader was very active in the Andrology Laboratories and Archives and History Committees, and he has chaired them both while also contributing as a faculty member for numerous Andrology Laboratory Workshops. In 2014, Dr. Schrader coordinated a joint meeting of the leadership of the ASA and CDC to determine common interests and establish mechanisms of interaction between them. In 2015, he led the “40 and Forward Celebration” to mark the ASA’s 40th anniversary. This extensive and impressive service to the ASA was recognized in 2015, when Dr. Schrader received the ASA Distinguished Service Award.

ASA has benefited from Dr. Schrader’s long-standing and active engagement with the ASA, including his activities that have enabled many of our members and annual scientific conference delegates to make their own contributions to the field of Andrology.  However, his impact extends well beyond the ASA, as evidenced from his other activities and award. In light of his career-long devotion to developing and implementing strategies that protect enhance male reproductive health, and his dedicated intellectual contributions and advocacy leading to practical outcomes of relevance to Andrology, the ASA is proud to award the inaugural ASA Impact Award to Dr. Steven Schrader.