Each member of the IGERT faculty team has been selected not only for their research capabilities but also for their proven track record of training and mentoring doctoral students and actively participating in the educational mission of the University. Collectively, our IGERT faculty team has advised and mentored over 100 PhD students in fields ranging from engineering to toxicology and psychology. Several of these students are now faculty members at Universities across the country and around the world, including City College of New York, Duke University, Iowa State University, Princeton University, Trinity University (Ireland), Cambridge University, to name just a few. The faculty participants also actively promote the training of underrepresented groups including women in engineering and minorities. They have been involved in activities ranging from the GLUE mentoring program to the UT Women in Engineering Program to the Hispanic Center for Excellence to serving as director of the American Economic Association Summer Minority Programs. Many of our faculty members have also received one or more departmental and university-wide teaching awards, additional evidence of their commitment to educating students.

Dr. Richard L. Corsi serves as Program Director and Principal Investigator (PI). He is assisted by Co-PIs Drs. Kerry Kinney, Maria Morandi and Jeffrey Siegel. A biosketch for each PI/Co-PI is provided below.

Dr. Richard Corsi is the ECH Bantel Professor of Professional Practice in the Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin. He received his B.S. degree in Environmental Resources Engineering at Humboldt State University in 1983, and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Civil Engineering at UC Davis in 1985 and 1989, respectively. Dr. Corsi's research focuses on the physics and chemistry of indoor air. He has served as principal investigator on over 60 research projects, ranging from the sorptive interactions between polar/non-polar VOCs and indoor materials, homogeneous indoor air chemistry and secondary aerosol formation, and heterogeneous chemistry at and within indoor materials. Dr. Corsi has also studied a wide range of indoor sources of air pollution, from dishwashers to paint and computers. He recently completed a large study involving building disinfection chemistry in the wake of anthrax attacks in the Fall of 2001. He and his research team (students) have published over 230 journal/conference papers and reports, and have been featured on the Canadian television series The Nature of Things, National Geographic, The Economist, Business Week, National Wildlife, Prevention, Men's Health, the Dallas Morning News, Houston Chronicle, San Francisco Chronicle, and more. In April 2006 Dr. Corsi received both of the major teaching awards in the Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin, and was also named a 2006 Distinguished Alumnus of Humboldt State University. He was recently honored with a Certification of Eminence as bestowed by the American Academy of Environmental Engineers. Dr. Corsi enjoys writing, playing (on acoustic guitar) and singing folk music, and performs twice per year for undergraduate students at The University of Texas.

Dr. Kerry A. Kinney is an associate professor in the Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. She received her B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of California, Davis in 1988 and her Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering from UC Davis in 1996. Her research group examines the potentially detrimental microbial communities present in indoor environments as well as the beneficial application of microorganisms to the treatment of environmental pollutants in the ambient environment. Her most current research efforts related to the indoor environment focus on utilization of molecular biology tools to characterize the bacterial and fungal communities that develop in buildings. On a similar note, she is working with Dr. Kirisits to develop a molecular tool that allows rapid determination of functional gene biomarkers in environmentally relevant bacteria. She has also conducted numerous studies to investigate vapor phase bioreactors treating air streams contaminated with volatile organic compounds or hydrogen sulfide. Most recently, she has been collaborating with other EWRE faculty investigating membrane bioreactors for the treatment of recalcitrant pollutants and integrated adsorption/ biological systems to treat the briny wastewater produced during oil and gas production. Dr. Kinney teaches classes in air pollution engineering and control, engineering microbiology and environmental engineering. She is the graduate advisor for the Environmental & Water Resources Engineering Program and current holder of the Roberta Woods Ray Centennial Fellowship. She is the recipient of the Civil Engineering Departmental Teaching Award (2003), NSF CAREER Award (1999), and the Ervin S. Perry Student Appreciation Award (1998). She is co-Founder and faculty liaison for Graduates Linked to Undergraduates in Engineering (GLUE), a mentoring program in the College of Engineering that has served nearly 160 students to date.

 

Dr. Maria Morandi is an assistant professor of Environmental Sciences and Occupational Health at the School of Public Health of the University of Texas at Houston. She holds a BS degree in Chemistry from the City College of New York (1978), and MS (1981) and Ph.D. (1985) degrees in Environmental Sciences from the Norton Nelson Institute of Environmental Medicine of New York University. Dr. Morandi is also certified in Industrial Hygiene (CIH) by the American Board of Industrial Hygiene.

Dr. Morandi's areas of expertise and research interest include assessment of indoor, outdoor and personal air concentrations of airborne contaminants in community and occupational environments, development of methods for personal exposure monitoring of gas and particle-phase airborne chemicals, evaluation of the effects from exposure to airborne particles and ozone on human and murine alveolar macrophages, and effects from exposure to airborne particles, ozone, and air toxics in children with asthma. She has also performed statistical modeling and of PM sources. Dr. Morandi is a current member of the EPA-CASAC Panel for the Ozone AQDR Review, is a member of the EPA-SAB Integrated Exposure/Health Effects Committee, and of the Board of Scientific Counselors (BOSC) of the National Toxicology Program (NIEHS). Dr. Morandi serves as peer reviewer for grant applications for NIOSH and NIH/NIEHS, and has served in multiple peer review panels of intramural research programs for NIOSH (NORA) and EPA-ORD.

Dr. Jeffrey Siegel is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin. He received his B.S. in Engineering from Swarthmore College in 1995 and his Ph.D. from U.C. Berkeley in Mechanical Engineering in 2002. Dr. Siegel and his research team have ongoing research on HVAC filtration, portable air cleaners, protecting industrial and residential buildings from extraordinary events, particle resuspension, particle transport and deposition in HVAC systems, and indoor air quality on school busses. He teaches classes on building environmental systems, HVAC design, design of energy-efficient and healthy buildings, and indoor air quality. He is an active member of ASHRAE and is a voting member of standard and technical committees associated with residential forced air systems, particles, and filtration. He is the recipient of the Early Career Award from the International Society for Exposure Assessment (ISEA)/American Chemistry Council (ACC), the 3M Non-Tenured Faculty Grant, and the ASHRAE New Investigator Award.

IGERT faculty participants bring a wide spectrum of expertise to the program and represent departments/schools across the University. A list of faculty participants and brief statements of expertise are provided below.

David Allen (Chemical Engineering) - Atmospheric Processes, Pollution Prevention
Richard L. Corsi (Civil / Environmental Engineering) - Indoor Sources and Chemistry

David Eaton (Public Policy) - Environmental Policy Analysis
Ofodike Ezekoye (Mechanical Engineering.) - Combustion Particles, Fire Science
Samuel Gosling (Psychology) - Human Perceptions, Indoor Psychology
Hillary Hart (Civil / Environmental Engineering) - Environmental Risk Communication
Maria Juenger (Civil / Materials Engineering) - Chemistry of Building Materials
LeeAnn Kahlor (Communication / Advertising) - Environmental Risk Communication
Howard Liljestrand (Civil/Environmental Engineering) - Air Chemistry, Endocrine Disrupting Compounds
Lynn Katz (Civil / Environmental Engineering) - Surface Chemistry
Kerry Kinney (Civil / Environmental Engineering) - Fungal Analysis, Fungal Biofiltration

Mary Jo Kirisits (Civil / Environmental Engineering) - Molecular Biological Methods
Nancy Kwallek (Architecture / Interior Design) - Human Productivity in Indoor Environments
Sheldon Landsberger (Mechanical / Nuclear Engineering) - Airborne Particles, Radionuclides
Elena McDonald-Buller (Civil / Environmental Engineering) - Atmospheric Processes / Modeling
Steven Moore (Architecture) - Sustainable Design, Social Impacts of Technology
Maria Morandi (Public Health) - Inhalation Exposure Analysis
Atila Novoselec (Civil / Architectural Engineering) - Building Energy, Air & Pollutant Flows
Robert Paterson (Architecture / Urban Planning) - Environmental Planning
Danny Reible (Civil / Environmental Engineering) - Contaminant Sources & Sinks
John Richburg (Toxicology) - Environmental Agents & Germ Cell Death
Jeffrey Siegel (Civil / Architectural Engineering) - Particle Dynamics / Control, HVAC Systems
Paul Szaniszlo (Molecular Genetics/Microbiology.) - Characterization of Fungal Pathogens
Lois Weinthal (Architecture/Interior Design) - Interior Architecture and Design
Chris Whitman (Pharmacy / Medicinal Chemistry) - Biochemistry, Pollutant Degradation
Roberton Williams (Economics) - Environmental Economics
Bugao Xu (Human Ecology) - Surface Contamination, Imaging Analysis