One Atmosphere Research Program
Project Personnel
Project Personnel
| One Atmosphere Research Program Project Personnel |
Dr. Ilona Jaspers
Ilona Jaspers received her Ph.D. in Toxicology in 1997 from the Environmental Health Sciences program at New York University. She is Associate Director with the Center for Environmental Medicine and Lung Biology (CEMLB) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and is an Assistant Professor in the Department of pediatrics and curriculum in toxicology, UNC School of Medicine. She studies the mechanisms mediating activation of NK-kappa B in airway epithelial cells, focusing on the role of oxidative stress in signal transduction events.
Her current research examines signal transduction cascades induced by exposure of airway epithelial cells to different oxygen tensions. For more information, visit the Center for Environmental Medicine and Lung Biology (CEMLB) website.
Dr. Harvey E. Jeffries
Dr. Jeffries is a gas-phase atmospheric chemist specializing in volatile organic compound photo- oxidation with oxides of nitrogen to produce ozone (ie, "smog"). In addition, he is a mathematical modeler, creating numerical simulation models of photochemistry that become components of large scale Eulerian models incorporating meteorological and emissions sub-models. Dr. Jeffries has been active in using these models to plan public policy for air pollution control. He has operated the UNC Outdoor Smog Chamber since 1970. This chamber has been used to help develop and test reaction mechanisms for use in EPA air quality models. In addition, the chamber has been in many empirical studies to help understand complex air quality chemistry. For detailed information, see http://airchem.sph.unc.edu
Professor Richard M. Kamens
Dr. Kenneth G. Sexton
For more than 30 years, Dr. Sexton has been involved in research using smog chambers to understand the atmospheric chemistry of urban systems of nitrogen oxides and hydrocarbons, with the focus on understanding the reactive chemistry producing ozone and other photochemical products. Research included maintaining and developing a suite of air monitoring and new analytical instruments, and developing improved QA/QC procedures, producing data suitable for modeling and simulating the experiments for the purposes of evaluating chemical mechanisms for use in air quality simulation models for ozone and other secondary air products. The data from these experiments was used to test the major chemical mechanisms SAPRC and Carbon Bond (including the latest version CB5). This effort evolved to studies of chemical systems including organic compounds designated as air toxics or hazardous air pollutants. He has helped develop new more sensitive and specific methods for detecting and quantifying air toxics, including those produced from biogenic hydrocarbons, and found in fresh and aged motor vehicle exhaust. In the last five years, he has focused on developing and demonstrating new technological systems to interface smog chambers and in vitro toxicological exposure systems for evaluating the effects of photochemistry on urban air mixtures and the resulting toxic potential for health effects directly along side of air monitors. These new toxicological systems included developing a new in vitro exposure apparatus for particulate matter.
Students: Students in our research group play a big part in planning, conducting, and analyzing research, and in presenting our findings at conferences. Our current students are:
Former students involved with the One Atmosphere project include