Exposure assessment is a branch of environmental science and occupational hygiene that focuses on the processes that take place at the interface between the environment containing the contaminant of interest and the organism being considered. These are the final steps in the path to release an environmental contaminant, through transport to its effect in a biological system. It tries to measure how much of a contaminant can be absorbed by an exposed target organism, in what form, at what rate and how much of the absorbed amount is actually available to produce a biological effect. Although the same general concepts apply to other organisms, the overwhelming majority of applications of exposure assessment are concerned with human health, making it an important tool in public health.

Anne C. Steinemann is an American civil and environmental engineering academic who has specialized chiefly in the fields of "healthy built environments, indoor air quality, consumer product emissions and exposures, drought management, and climate-related hazards", with a focus on engineering and sustainability. Currently professor of civil engineering at the University of Melbourne and professor of engineering at James Cook University, she has also advised numerous government and industry bodies in the United States and Australia and appeared widely in press, radio, television and website segments communicating her findings to the general public.