Amber L. Kramer joined the Zhu Research group in January 2020 where she worked on the chemical composition of fine particulate matter (PM₂.₅) from different pollution sources. Amber’s research goals are to better understand the adverse human health impacts of air pollution by linking the chemical composition and toxicological profiles of different sources of PM₂.₅. She worked with underrepresented communities, national laboratories, and was a NIEHS Superfund Research Project trainee throughout her graduate work. Her goal is to provide information to all communities as to how they can protect themselves from the harmful effects of PM₂.₅ exposure.

Projects:

• Wildfire emissions exposure:

    • Assess the effectiveness of low-cost sensor networks to track community exposure to wildfire PM₂.₅ emissions, both indoors and outdoors.

    • Assess the link between chemical emissions and toxicological outcomes of different wildfire fuel types.

• Electronic cigarette and vaping:

    • Link measured toxicological outcomes of electronic cigarette/vaping emissions to chemical composition.

Charlene Nguyen received her Ph.D. degree at the UCLA Department of Environmental Health Sciences, specializing in Industrial Hygiene. Her research interests include occupational health and safety, indoor air quality, and workplace exposure assessment. Her current research explores workplace exposure to exhaled e-cigarette aerosols, primarily exposure e-cig-related air pollutants among workers in vape shops and strategies to mitigate these exposures.

Projects:

• Electronic cigarettes and vaping:

    • Conduct indoor air quality surveys and assess temporal and spatial profiles of e-cig-related fine and ultrafine particles in vape shops.

    • Assess worker exposure to exhaled e-cig aerosols in vape shops through air sampling and biological monitoring of nicotine as a tracer

    • Test air mitigation strategies to reduce worker exposure to e-cig-related air pollutants in vape shops

David Park was a research data analyst after completing a Bachelor of Science degree in Environmental Science and a Concentration in Environmental Health at UCLA in 2023. He worked on a variety of projects, such as wildfire mixture burns and electronic cigarette aerosol characterization.

Dr. David Quiros is a Manager at the California Air Resources Board. He was a student of the Environmental Science & Engineering program at UCLA, and performed roadside ultrafine particle characterization studies in the Zhu research lab. At CARB, he has worked on vehicle exhaust measurement studies, and supported regulatory development for light-duty passenger car, heavy-duty truck, and freight related programs. His group is currently working on new requirements for port equipment and marine vessels to use cleaner combustion and zero-emission technologies. He also oversees stationary diesel engine regulations at CARB, and works on the verification of aftermarket controls, such as diesel particulate filters (DPFs) and selective catalytic reduction (SCR) systems for diesel engines. He contributes to interagency governmental discussions on advancing infrastructure to support charging and fueling of zero-emission equipment.

Emily Marino completed her MPH/MURP degree at the Fielding School of Public Health and Luskin School of Urban Planning in 2019. While attending UCLA, Emily worked with the Zhu lab on a community-based air quality monitoring study that evaluated the impacts of freeway traffic on indoor and outdoor air quality and assessed the efficacy of using low-cost air sensors for community-based research. Emily also completed an internship with the South Coast Air Quality Management District, which focused on evaluating the performance of low-cost air sensor technologies. Since graduation, Emily has been working as an environmental planner, providing air quality and greenhouse gas technical assessments, California Environmental Quality Act analyses, and climate and sustainability services to local governments and utility providers in California.

Dr. Eon Lee received his Ph.D. in Civil Engineering at UCLA in 2013 and did his post-doctoral research at the UCLA Department of Environmental Health Sciences. His previous research at UCLA focused on aerosol science and exposure assessment by taking both experimental and modeling approaches to address mobile source air pollution issues in the in-cabin, on-road, and near-freeway environments. He is currently affiliated with California Air Resources Board (CARB) and continues his work at the Heavy-Duty Emissions Testing Laboratory of CARB.

Farzan Oroumiyeh received his Ph.D. degree at UCLA Department of Environmental Health Sciences. Farzan’s research focused on non-exhaust traffic emission sources, including brake and tire wear emissions, and their spatial distribution in urban environments. Farzan is also exploring more emerging traffic emission sources such as electric vehicle (EV) batteries and their characteristics such as chemical composition and particle size distribution. He has also worked in collaboration with UCLA Department of Mechanical Engineering to study the efficiency of string-based wet electrostatic precipitators in collection of fine and ultrafine particles.

Projects:

• Non-exhaust traffic emissions:

    • Perform on-road measurement of brake and tire wear particles on various light-duty vehicles

    • Examine the spatial distribution of metals and trace elements associated with brake and tire wear particles

    • Compare the contribution of different sources to generation of PM metals and trace elements in the Greater Los Angeles area

    • Collaborate with epidemiologists and biostatisticians to examine the association between the brake and tire wear metals and adverse health outcomes in the Greater Los Angeles area

    • Work on developing a state-of-art sampling apparatus for measuring brake wear particles from heavy-duty vehicles

Jonathan Liu received his Ph.D. degree at UCLA Department of Environmental Health Sciences. His research interests include geospatial characterization of brake and tire wear emissions, modeling methods in environmental health, and novel sources of environmental data.

Projects:

• COVID-19 related:

    • Modeled the effect of shelter-in-place measures on highway traffic and near-road NO and NO2 concentrations

• Non-exhaust traffic emissions:

    • Characterize brake and tire wear metal concentrations using land-use regression techniques

    • Improve land-use regression model predictions by co-Kriging with the PurpleAir sensor network

Kiera Dixon received her M.S. degree at the UCLA Department of Environmental Health Sciences. She is interested in research involving climate change mitigation, air pollution reduction and environmental justice. She has previously assisted with field research exploring workplace exposure to e-cigarette aerosols among vape shop workers and related mitigation strategies. Currently, she is working on creating guidelines for improving indoor air quality by modeling indoor PM2.5 concentrations under different simulation scenarios.

Projects:

• Environmental justice & air quality

    • Using CONTAM software to simulate indoor air quality under common real-world scenarios to determine whether opening or closing windows leads to better indoor air quality

    • Conducting a literature review to determine data-backed input parameters (i.e. PM2.5 pollutant concentrations, climate, building characteristics, etc.) for simulation scenarios

    • Creating guidelines that will be accessible to the general public to increase the odds of maintaining optimal indoor air quality

Li Zhang received his D. Env degree at the UCLA Department of Environmental Science Engineering. His research interests include climate change and air quality improvement. His research evaluated the 'Dual Attainments' of reaching CO₂ emission peak and the attainment of the air quality standards for Chinese city, explores the CO₂ emission scenarios for China until 2060, compiles the China Carbon Watch system to quickly estimate the monthly, provincial and CO₂ emissions in all sectors. Besides, he explored the transport and mitigation of exhaled electronic cigarette aerosols in a multizone indoor environment.

Projects:

• Electronic cigarettes and vaping:

    • In an experimental setting, we aim to the effectiveness of different mitigation strategies to reduce indoor particulate pollution due to e-cig under six different conditions.

• 'Dual Attainments' of CO₂ emission peak and air quality:

    The Dual Attainments of reaching CO₂ emission peak and the attainment of the air quality standards are major environmental challenges for Chinese cities. Carrying out research on the evaluation methods of city-level “Dual Attainments” is an important way for China to achieve coordinated governance of addressing climate change and improving air quality. We aim to establish a "Dual Attainments" evaluation model for Chinese cities by integrating emission inventory of CO₂ and major air pollutants, emission scenarios models, transport processes models and spatial analysis models so that city environment researchers, planners, and decision makers can coordinate goals of carbon emissions and air quality.

• China Carbon Watch system:

    A one- or two-year-time lag exists in the current carbon emission reporting system. In order to provide reference for implementing climate actions and assessing the impacts on CO₂ emissions due to emergencies such as the current COVID-19 pandemic, a timely evaluation of CO₂ emission inventory is needed. We aim to compile the China Carbon Watch (CCW) system to quickly estimate the monthly, provincial CO₂ emissions in all sectors, including power, industry, transportation, building and agriculture sectors. The establishment of CCW system could be the footstone for China to reach the peak of carbon emissions around 2030.

Dr. Liqiao (Vicky) Li received her Ph.D. degree in Environmental Health Sciences from UCLA in 2021. Her doctoral research focused on aerosol characterization, environmental exposure assessment, and indoor air quality. In particular, she explored the characteristics of inhaled and exhaled e-cigarette aerosols and their impacts on indoor air quality. In addition, she worked on COVID-19 related projects that assessed the effectiveness of various face coverings to mitigate the outward transport of respiratory droplets indoors. Vicky is currently a Senior Air Quality Consultant in the Air Sciences Group at Ramboll, where she works on emissions estimation, air dispersion modeling, health risk assessment, air quality and greenhouse gas analyses, permitting, and compliance.

Lisa Yan received her B.S. degree at UCLA. She is interested in pursuing a career in either the public health or medical field, with research interests in various environmental health exposures as well as epigenetics. She gained research skills and exposure to the public health field from working with the Zhu Research Group. Her project with Dr. Zhu’s lab was related to wildfire emissions.

Dr. Qunfang (Zoe) Zhang is a Staff Air Pollution Specialist in Research Division of California Air Resources Board (CARB). She studied the exposures of school children to traffic emissions at school classrooms and in school buses, and received her Ph.D degree in Environmental Health Sciences at UCLA in 2012. After joining CARB, she has worked on many in-house research and managed research contracts related to indoor source emissions, personal exposures and building characteristics. She has also worked extensively with other government agencies (e.g., DOE, CPSC, Health Canada, and CEC), standard organizations (e.g., CHPS, ASTM, and UL), and industry representatives (e.g., AHAM) to provide technical comments and help adopt latest research findings in the development of policies and standards.

Dr. Rachel Connolly received her Ph.D. degree in Environmental Health Sciences from UCLA in 2022. Rachel Connolly is currently a Project Director with the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation. Rachel’s research focuses on environmental justice and associated environmental exposures including air quality and access to green space. With the Center, she has collaborated on projects involving the evaluation of environmental incentive programs, with regards to increasing access to environmental amenities for underserved populations, as well as quantitative health impact assessments utilizing environmental health methods. With the lab, she works on projects related to both indoor and outdoor air quality and resulting exposure and health impacts.

Projects:

• Application of low-cost sensors:

    • Monitor indoor and outdoor air quality in a UCLA housing community using low cost air sensors, to determine to what extent these sensors can be used to detect and evaluate the impacts of various emission sources on air quality

• Environmental justice and air quality:

    • Assess the effects of residential gas appliances on indoor and outdoor air quality and public health in California

    • Estimate mortality impacts from a vehicle emission reduction effort – a smog repair incentive program – in the San Joaquin Valley

Robert Schupp received his M.S. degree at the UCLA Department of Environmental Health Sciences. His research interests include environmental and occupational exposure assessments. His research focused on occupational exposure and related health effects to electronic cigarette-related emissions for vape shop employees.

Tiancong Ma conducted his Postdoctoral training at Zhu's Lab. He received a B.S. degree in 2013 at the South China University of Technology. Then, he received his Ph.D. degree (2019) in physical chemistry at the Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences. He has published research articles in J. Am. Chem. Soc., Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., Adv. Healthcare Mater., Small, Chem. Mater., etc. His research interests include synthesis, applications, and toxicity of nanomaterials, the safety and toxicity of electronic cigarette.

Projects:

• Electronic cigarettes and vaping:

    • Characterize the cytotoxicity of e-cigarette aerosols generated from different e-liquid

    • Elucidate the link between e-cig device features and key e-liquid components and their toxic potential

    • Identify the associated mechanism of e-cigarette induced pulmonary toxicity

Dr. Tianyang (Tony) Wang received his D. Env degree from the Environmental Science and Engineering program at UCLA in 2019. He is currently an Air Resources Engineer in the California Air Resources Board (CARB). At CARB, he mainly works on the SB 375 program, which is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from coordinated land-use and transportation strategies. His doctoral dissertation topic is Achieving Sustainable Net-Zero Greenhouse Gas Emissions in California and its Health Cobenefit.

Tiffany Nam received her MPH degree in Environmental Health Sciences at UCLA in 2020. Her research focused on developing health communication tools on various health impacts related to adverse air quality. Tiffany’s passion includes communicating and disseminating information about environmental hazards to ensure public health and safety. She is currently a Health Education Coordinator for the California Poison Control System at UCSF and provides poison prevention, education, and outreach programs across California.

Dr. Yan Lin received his Ph.D. in Environmental Health Sciences at UCLA in 2019. With a biomarker approach, Yan’s research aims to illustrate the impact of air pollution on population’s exposure to toxic chemicals and the subsequent health effects. Advised by Dr. Yifang Zhu, his doctoral research focused on the early cardiovascular effects of air pollution. Yan Lin is currently a postdoctoral associate at Duke Global Health Institute, where his research aims to elucidate the pathophysiologic mechanisms by which air pollution causes adverse birth outcomes.

Yu-Han (Amy) Chen received her master’s degree in Environmental Health Sciences at UCLA in 2020. Her research focused on applications of low-cost air sensors (i.e., PurpleAir). She is now working under Air Quality Planning and Science Division in California Air Resources Board (CARB).

Zemin Wang received her master’s degree in Environmental Health Sciences at UCLA in 2020. Before joining UCLA, she had her Bachelor’s degree in Preventive Medicine at Peking University Health Science Center. Her research investigated the performance and application of low-cost air monitoring sensors. She also evaluated the impacts of residential gas appliances on indoor and outdoor air quality and public health in California.