Health in Urban Environments Series: Global pollution in urban environments

Event details

During this lunchtime seminar, researchers at the University of York will discuss their research into global pollution in urban environments. Confirmed speakers include Dr. Harry Vallack from the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI-Y) and Dr. Adam Vaughan from the Wolfson Atmospheric Chemistry Laboratories (WACL).

Dr. Harry Vallack, Senior Research Asoociate for Stockholm Environment Institute in York (SEI-Y)

Harry Vallack is an ecologist specialising in air pollutant emissions inventories, carbon dynamics of plant/soil systems, ambient dust pollution monitoring and issues relating to persistent organic pollutants (POPs).

Harry has over 25 years experience working on various aspects of air pollution at scales ranging from local to global. This has included capacity building within non-OECD countries (including developing of suitable manuals/software) for the preparation of air pollutant emissions inventories, producing air pollution emission scenario projections for developing country regions.

Harry’s current research interests concern short-lived climate pollutants (SLCPs), global change ecology, soil carbon dynamics and capacity building for emissions inventory preparation in developing countries. In the process of this research, he has developed software tools to enable developing countries to compile air pollutant emission inventories. More recently he has helped develop a tool to assist countries prioritise alternative SLCP mitigation strategies, going from emissions estimates through to likely impacts on human health crop production and climate.

Dr. Adam Vaughan, Postdoctoral Researcher at the Wolfson Atmospheric Chemistry Laboratories (WACL)

Adam is a postdoctoral researcher at the Wolfson Atmospheric Chemistry Laboratories (WACL) since 2017, specialising in urban emission measurements. WACL is the UK’s first dedicated laboratory building for atmospheric chemistry research. Adam obtained his Master’s in Chemistry from the University of Hull in 2013, and his PhD in Chemistry from the University of York in 2017, working with Prof. James Lee and Prof. Lucy Carpenter. His PhD focused on assessing UK emissions from a low flying aircraft. His work led to the first direct assessment of Greater London emissions from an aircraft through eddy-covariance, highlighting that London’s NOx emissions were being underestimated in the National Inventory. Since completing his PhD, Adam has developed a range of techniques for assessing urban emissions through enhanced eddy-covariance methodologies. He has made air quality measurements on multiple global field campaigns and more recently led research in New Delhi measuring vehicle emissions through remote sensing techniques.

Health in Urban Environments Event Series

This event forms part of the Health in Urban Environments Event Series where York Environmental Sustainability Institute (YESI), Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), Interdisciplinary Global Development Centre (IGDC), Wolfson Atmospheric Chemistry Laboratories (WACL) and several Research Champions are joining forces to host an event series to explore Urban Living-related research and innovation at the University of York.

Through a series of workshops, lunchtime seminar, full day events and discussion sessions, we will gain insight into the historical development of the world’s cities and the social and environmental consequences of urbanisation.

By bringing together the social, physical and life sciences we will be able to explore this topic from many angles and celebrate the interdisciplinary nature of research at the University of York.

The series, which will begin in January and conclude in June in alignment with Clean Air Day, will be open to researchers, staff and students at the University of York.