Allen Robinson, Professor

Atmospheric particles play an important role in climate forcing; they are also strongly associated with adverse human health effects. Motor vehicles, wood stoves, and other combustion systems are major sources of atmospheric particles. This talk discusses recent field, laboratory, and modeling results on organic particle emissions from combustion systems. The results reveal a dynamic picture in which low-volatility organics evaporate, oxidize, and recondense as they are transported away from the source. This new picture alters our understanding of the contribution of combustion sources to urban and regional pollution and brings chemical transport model predictions into better agreement with field observations. The talk concludes with a discussion of the implications of these recent findings on human exposures and the design of regulations to control organic aerosols.

Bio: Dr. Allen Robinson is a Professor in the Departments of Mechanical Engineering and Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University. His research examines the impact of emissions from combustion systems on urban and regional air quality and biomass energy. Dr. Robinson joined Carnegie Mellon in 1998 after working for two years as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Combustion Research Facility at Sandia National Laboratories. As a postdoctoral fellow his research focused on coal-biomass cofiring. He received his Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley in Mechanical Engineering in 1996 and his B.S. in Civil Engineering from Stanford University in 1990. He received the Ahrens Career Development Chair in Mechanical Engineering in 2005 and the George Tallman Ladd Outstanding Young Faculty Award in 2000, both from Carnegie Mellon University.