Summary
I am one of three UKRI Clean Air Champions working to provide leadership and coordination across the Clean Air Programme and within the wider research and stakeholder community.
I led the development of the London Air Quality Network to become the largest urban network in Europe and I therefore have a solid grounding in air quality measurement techniques. I have pursued network data analysis techniques to characterise sources, trends and changes in urban air pollution to determine if policies to improve air pollution are working. This has involved the development and application of source apportionment techniques to quantify the impacts of PM arising from sources that are poorly represented in emissions inventories including construction, waste management, volcanos and urban wood burning.
As a member of the Medical Research Council Centre for Environment and Health I work with toxicologists, clinicians and epidemiologists promoting the best use of air pollution measurements in health studies.
I am a member of Defra’s Air Quality Expert Group and a project reviewer and steering group member for the Irish EPA. My past roles include being co-opted to the Committee on Medical Effects of Air Pollution for their review of the UK air quality index, membership of the air quality committee of Environmental Protection UK and science advisory committee member at AirParif. I was also a co-author of Every Breath You Take, the Royal College of Physician’s report on the life-long impacts air pollution.
I am passionate about communicating air pollution science to policymakers and the public. This has included evidence to the Parliamentary Environmental Audit Committee and the Greater London Assembly. I am a regular contributor to the Guardian newspaper where I write the Pollution Watch column and have taken part in the Guardian Ideal Cities series and Science Weekly Podcasts. My other writing credits include BBC Science Focus Magazine, the Irish Times, Wired, the Geographical Magazine, the Mail on Sunday and the US website Salon.
I have a keen interest in air pollution history and how the lessons from the past can help future air pollution management. These themes are explored in my book “The Invisible Killer – the rising global threat of air pollution and how we can fight back.
Publications
Journals
Baerenbold O, Meis M, Martínez‐Hernández I, et al., 2023, A dependent Bayesian Dirichlet process model for source apportionment of particle number size distribution, Environmetrics, Vol:34, ISSN:1180-4009
Font A, Ciupek K, Butterfield D, et al., 2022, Long-term trends in particulate matter from wood burning in the United Kingdom: Dependence on weather and social factors, Environmental Pollution, Vol:314, ISSN:0269-7491
Tremper A, Jephcote C, Gulliver J, et al., 2022, Sources of particle number concentration and noise near London Gatwick Airport, Environment International, Vol:161, ISSN:0160-4120
Ciupek K, Quincey P, Green DC, et al., 2021, Challenges and policy implications of long-term changes in mass absorption cross-section derived from equivalent black carbon and elemental carbon measurements in London and south-east England in 2014-2019, Environmental Science: Processes and Impacts, Vol:23, ISSN:2050-7895, Pages:1949-1960
Fowler D, Brimblecombe P, Burrows J, et al., 2020, A chronology of global air quality., Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, Vol:378, ISSN:1364-503X, Pages:1-28