Denise L. Mauzerall (Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Public and International Affairs at Princeton University)

Reducing the emissions of air pollutants and greenhouse gases have synergies and co-benefits for air quality, public health, climate and food security.    My group examines mitigation opportunities in the power, residential, industry, and transport sectors and where possible identifies opportunities and synergies between sectors that enhance reductions.  Our work involves rigorous technical analyses of air pollution emissions, transport and implications for public health as well as evaluations of mitigation strategies and cost-benefit analyses.  Our findings provide useful insights to inform environmental and health policy in China and India.

Recently published work on China will be discussed including:  Residential sector: how diversifying heat sources in China’s urban district heating systems will reduce the risk of carbon lock-in from continuing operation of coal power plants used to supply urban heating; Transport/Power:  how alternative energy vehicle deployment delivers climate, air quality and health co-benefits only when coupled with decarbonizing power generation;  Hydrogen:  how subsidizing grid-based electrolytic hydrogen will increase GHG emissions in coal dominated power systems. Ongoing research on India that will be discussed includes:  the relative role of emissions and meteorology in driving air pollution trends; source:receptor analyses using an updated WRF-Chem model of the impact of 2022 emissions from individual sectors on downwind pollution levels and public health in India.

Bio: Dr. Denise Mauzerall is the William S. Tod Professor of Environmental Engineering and International Affairs jointly appointed between the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs and the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Princeton University where she is a core professor in the Center for Policy Research on Energy and Environment.  Mauzerall’s group conducts technically rigorous, policy relevant interdisciplinary research that explores opportunities for synergies between air pollution and greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation and associated health and food security benefits around the world.  Recent research has focussed on interventions in the residential, transport, power, industrial and agricultural sectors in China.  Current research is increasingly focussing on air pollution mitigation strategies for the power and industrial sectors in India and associated co-benefits for health.   Trained as an atmospheric scientist, Mauzerall collaborates widely with technological, economic, policy, climate, health and agricultural experts.  Mauzerall has published over 120 papers on environmental/energy topics in top research journals and has an H-index of 70.  She is a fellow of the American Geophysical Union and is the co-chief editor of the new journal Sustainable Horizons.  Brown University, Sc.B. with honors in Chemistry; Stanford University,  M.S. in Environmental Engineering;  Harvard University, PhD in Atmospheric Chemistry.