InterMET.digital webinar: Air quality, energy, climate, and public health
Summary
Poor air quality is the third leading cause of premature mortality (trailing only high blood pressure and smoking), leading to almost 7 million fatalities every year. Challenging air conditions exist globally, with particular problem areas in Asia. In this webinar, we’ll outline how businesses, NGOs, and scientists are working to solve this noxious problem.
This webinar will explore a number of key issues, including
- Opportunities for the public, private and academic sectors to work together to help meet the growing challenge of poor air quality to public health
- How the public, private and academic sectors are already working together
- The opportunities for research scientists to develop a business which aims to help address air quality issues
- How the private sector is already realising the business opportunities to address poor air quality.
CHAIR & PANELLISTS
Dr. Sheldon Drobot
Mission Area Lead, Environmental Intelligence & Sustainability, Ball Aerospace
Sheldon Drobot is the Mission Area Lead for Environmental Intelligence & Sustainability within Ball Aerospace’s Civil Space business unit. In this role, he engages with internal and external teams to develop and execute new projects focused on a simple ambition: do well for the planet, its inhabitants, animals, and ecosystems by creating innovative hardware and software solutions.
Dr. Prateek Shrestha
Research engineer in the Residential Buildings Research Group at NREL
Prateek is a research engineer in the Residential Buildings Research Group at NREL. Prateek is also a member of ASHRAE, and his areas of expertise include indoor air quality, environmental monitoring data acquisition systems, building energy modelling, and HVAC systems. He is currently doing research on the energy performance of 3D-printed concrete homes, energy audits of multifamily buildings, and geothermal heat pumps in U.S. homes.
Prior to joining NREL, Prateek did his post-doc at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory where he led several research efforts including a large-scale DOE-funded field study to investigate the impacts of home energy retrofits on potential asbestos contamination of houses containing vermiculite insulation, simulation of airborne SARS-CoV-2 aerosols within buildings, and multizonal airflow network modelling of a research building. For his Ph.D. research at CU Boulder, he studied the correlations between home weatherization, indoor air quality and respiratory health of home residents during wildfire seasons using blower door testing, spirometry, and low-cost air monitoring instruments.
Prateek is originally from Kathmandu, Nepal and enjoys hiking, biking, musical instruments, amateur astronomy, DIY aerospace and robotics, and 3D printing as his hobbies.
Professor Tracey Holloway
Jeff Rudd and Jeanne Bissell Professor of Energy Analysis and Policy at the University of Wisconsin—Madison
Tracey is the Jeff Rudd and Jeanne Bissell Professor of Energy Analysis and Policy at the University of Wisconsin—Madison, jointly appointed in the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies and the Department of Atmospheric and Ocean Sciences.
She works at the intersection of air quality, energy, climate, and public health, Dr. Holloway has been recognized as a member of the National Academy of Medicine, as a recipient of the Ascent Award from the American Geophysical Union Atmospheric Sciences Section, and with multiple awards for science outreach, diversity, and mentoring.
She serves as the two-time Leader of the NASA Health and Air Quality Applied Sciences Team, which connects NASA data with stakeholder interests in air quality management and public health, and she chairs the Energy Analysis and Policy graduate certificate at UW-Madison. Dr. Holloway holds an Sc.B. with honours in Applied Math from Brown University, and a Ph.D. in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences from Princeton University, along with a graduate certificate in Science, Technology, and Environmental Policy from the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs.
Professor Eloise Marais
Eloise is Associate Professor in Physical Geography at University College London
Eloise leads the UCL Atmospheric Composition and Air Quality research group at UCL (https://maraisresearchgroup.co.uk/). The group makes innovative use of data from multiple platforms (models, aircraft, satellites, lab and field measurements) to better understand the influence of humans on atmospheric chemistry, air quality, and climate at urban, regional and global scales.
Her work on the health burden of air pollution from fossil fuel use and from rapid air quality degradation in fast-growing cities in the tropics has received media attention from leading agencies such as New York Times, The Guardian, Reuters and the BBC.
Thomas Delgado
Chief Executive Officer of Pollution Solution
Thomas Delgado is the CEO and founder of Pollution Solution, a UK based company, well known for its Roadvent® product that Thomas invented. Thomas has extensive knowledge and experience in outdoor ambient air pollution and road based emissions. His personal mission is to improve the lives of millions of people globally, by providing simple, localised technology to solve macro issues.
