research overview
- My research group currently has two paths of inquiry, one related to our group's ability to measure and characterize air quality and the associated impacts, and one focused on technology adoption and uptake in the developing world. We are engaged in the collection and characterization of airborne particulate matter (PM) followed by the subsequent use of the measurements to drive epidemiological research; we are trying to understand which sources of PM are causing the mortality and morbidity. As part of that activity, we are characterizing emissions from specific source types, wildfires, motor vehicles, and landfills. A second path of inquiry involves developing the next generation of tools that can be used to assess emissions and exposure to harmful air pollutants. Over the past decade, we have had a proliferation of projects spin out of our initial NSF MAQS effort. This path now includes projects that involve leak detection on landfills as well as projects that engage citizen scientists.