Pioneer in measuring urban air quality wins research award

Tuesday, March 20, 2001 | 4:09 a.m.

John H. Seinfeld, a chemical engineer who helped develop the first tools for measuring urban air pollution in the 1970s, will receive the silver medallion and a $10,000 prize at ceremonies in Reno March 26, DRI officials said.

Seinfeld's early work focussed on the chemical and physical processes occurring in the polluted urban atmosphere. He was one of the first scientists to describe the chemical processes leading to urban ozone.

His landmark papers on mathematical models for air pollution in 1972 led to the first urban air quality models incorporated in the Federal Clean Air Act.

Seinfeld, 57, former dean of the California Institute of Technology's Division of Engineering and Applied Science, became one of the youngest persons ever elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1982.

The analytical tools he developed are still used by air quality scientists around the world. He has written four books, including the leading basic textbook in atmospheric science, "Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics: From Air Pollution to Climate Change."

As the winner of DRI's 2001 Nevada Medal, he will give a lecture at DRI in Reno March 26, "Aerosols and Climate." The DRI's abstract for the lecture series says the role of aerosols "stands as perhaps the single largest uncertainty in predicting future climate."

The DRI is a non-profit division of the state of Nevada's university and community college system. The award has been issued annually since 1988 to a national leader in science or engineering.

Last year's award went to Dr. Harold Mooney, an environmental biology professor at Stanford University.

Mooney warned in his speech in Reno last spring that the invasion of non-native plant and animal species rivaled global warming's threat to world ecosystems.