In December 2023, Dr. Marina Vance, Fulbright US Scholar to Indonesia, visited and delivered seminars at three universities in Australia. These visits were made possible by a Fulbright East Asia & Pacific Regional Travel Program (RTP) grant.

Dr. Vance visited Macquarie University in Sydney and gave a talk at their School of Natural Sciences, then she visited the University of Wollongong in Wollongong and presented in their Environmental Futures Seminar in the School of Earth, Atmospheric and Life Sciences, and finally, she visited the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane and met with Prof. Lydia Morawska and gave a talk for the International Laboratory for Air Quality and Health.

The title of her talk was “Measuring particulate matter where the people are: Ambient and Indoor microenvironmental assessments of PM2.5 concentrations, transport, and personal exposures.” Dr. Vance provided background in the form of an overview of recent studies by her research group related to indoor emissions and transport of fine particulate matter (particles in the air smaller than 2.5 micrometers in diameter, or PM2.5) as a part of large indoor collaborative studies in test houses (the HOMEChem and CASA campaigns), as well as smaller-scale deployments in real homes. She then presented preliminary results from her current Fulbright research project in Bogor, Indonesia, assessing personal exposures to PM2.5 using low-cost sensors.

There is a well-established link between the inhalation of PM2.5 and a wide variety of negative health effects. It is important to assess ambient and indoor microenvironmental concentrations to help inform decisions on where and when it is most effective to reduce PM2.5 exposure. Moreover, recent advancements in low-cost sensor technology have enabled the deployment of multiple sensors to assess indoor PM transport. Dr. Vance’s Fulbright Scholar research project in Bogor, Indonesia, harnesses the usefulness of low-cost sensor technology to measure indoor and outdoor PM2.5 exposures in realistic scenarios while also evaluating the PM2.5 data quality for accuracy in this environment.

Dr. Vance holds a PhD in Environmental Engineering from Virginia Tech and is an associate professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder, where she also holds a courtesy appointment in the Environmental Engineering Program.