Grants and Contributions:

Grant or Award spanning more than one fiscal year. (2017-2018 to 2022-2023)

Cutting edge research happens at the intersection of complementary disciplines. In the context of air pollution exposure modeling, the rapid emergence of smart phone technologies has created exciting opportunities to further our understanding of how individual mobility patterns impact exposures. In addition, new chemical assays are available that may provide more meaningful exposure information for particulate pollutants than traditional mass-based measurements. However, we have yet to realize the full potential of these new technologies and further research is needed to seamlessly integrate these data streams to better understand individual and population-level exposures to air pollution.

My long-term research program has two main themes : 1) Developing tools to support mobility-based air pollution exposure assessment; 2) Applying new chemical assays to better understand components of fine particles (PM2.5) that contribute to oxidative stress in biological systems. These themes are multi-disciplinary in nature and are supported by ongoing collaborations with atmospheric chemists, civil engineers, and geographers. Over the next 5-years, two short-term projects are planned. First, the MAPLE (Mobility-based Air PoLlution Exposure) project will extend the capabilities of an existing smart phone application (DataMobile; developed by Dr. Zachary Patterson, Concordia University) to include estimation of both short and long-term air pollution exposures by mapping subject trajectories to exposure surfaces for particulate air pollutants. Anonymous data will be collected to evaluate how activity patterns influence air pollution exposures and how these patterns vary by neighbourhood characteristics and other factors. A validation study will also be conducted to compare mobility-based exposure estimates to “gold-standard” personal exposures. Second, I will expand the ongoing SPARTAN (Surface PARTiculate mAtter Network) project to include measurements of PM2.5 oxidative potential at 13 locations around the globe. Recent evidence suggests that PM2.5 oxidative potential (i.e. the ability of PM2.5 to cause oxidative stress) may be a more biologically relevant exposure compared to traditional mass-based measurements. Incorporating this parameter into SPARTAN will allow us to evaluate which components of PM2.5 are the most important predictors of oxidative potential around the world.

My research program will advance the state of the art in air pollution exposure science by incorporating mobility information into personal exposure assessment and by moving beyond traditional mass-based measurements for particulate air pollution. I will develop cost-effective tools to inform the public, support large-scale population-based exposure assessment, and provide an ongoing source of data for future academic endeavors. I will also train a number of highly quality personnel.