Thank you for visiting my blog. On this site I provide information related to indoor air quality, including findings by my own research team and colleagues in the Building Energy and Environments (BEE) group at the University of Texas at Austin (UT). This site will be a conduit of information related to a large new four-year study on indoor air quality in high schools, sponsored by the USEPA and conducted by the BEE group at UT. I will also include short statements and assessments related to various indoor air quality issues, including important research findings by others.
About Me
I am Dean of the College of Engineering at UC Davis and a professor emeritus in the Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering (CAEE) at UT. From 2013 to 2017 I served as Department Chair of CAEE. Prior to joining the faculty of CAEE at UT in 1994 I served on the faculty of the School of Engineering at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada, from 1990 through 1993.
My early research efforts focused on outdoor air pollution, particularly as related to cross-media contaminant transport from municipal and industrial wastewater to outdoor air. In the late 1990s I transitioned to studying indoor air quality out of recognition of it being a fairly wide open research frontier, and because it is so important to human health; the average American lives to be 79 years old and spends 70 of those years inside of buildings, environments that dominate lifetime inhalation and dermal exposure of humans to harmful pollutants. My research on indoor air quality has focused largely on gas-phase pollutants, with some research on airborne particles. My students and I study a wide range of issues, including source dynamics, sorption of organic contaminants to indoor materials, oxidation reactions in building air and on surfaces, and novel gas-phase pollutant control technologies. Additional details are found in my CV -Richard L. Corsi
I love learning, and also working with students. Having received a great education and being fortunate to have great mentors at both the undergraduate and graduate level, I know how much a good education and mentoring can mean to young scholars. I am thankful to have worked with so many wonderful undergraduate and graduate students, both in the classroom and in research. They have always been my energy source, the true giants on whose shoulders I have stood. As such, I am moved and humbled to have recently been elected to the University of Texas Academy of Distinguished Teachers. My hope is that by blogging I will continue to learn, but also will help to educate others on the importance of, and issues related to, indoor air quality.
Please also consider following me on Twitter @CorsIAQ, and following the Department of CAEE as well @UT_CAEE.
Twitter UC Davis College of Engineering @UCDavisCOE