Air Quality Expert Group

Membership of AQEG

Chairman

Professor Mike Pilling is Professor of Physical Chemistry at the University of Leeds and Director of the Distributed Institute for Atmospheric Composition, one of the NERC Centres for Atmospheric Science. He is also President of the Faraday Division of the Royal Society of Chemistry. He has been involved in atmospheric chemistry research for almost 10 years, working especially on chemistry in the boundary layer and free troposphere. Professor Pilling is also interested in, and committed to, seeing the results of research used in the public interest. He was previously a member of the Department of the Environment's Quality of Urban Air Review Group, which produced three reports dealing with aspects of urban air quality in the UK.

Professor Pilling indicated that he had not undertaken any political activity during the past five years.

Members

Professor Helen ApSimon is Professor of Air Pollution Studies at Imperial College London. Her research in air pollution developed from modelling studies of nuclear accidents, and diversified into international issues such as acid rain, and air pollution problems in Eastern Europe. Over the last fifteen years she has worked extensively for Task Forces under the UN ECE Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution, undertaking modelling and assessment of cost-effective strategies to reduce acidification, eutrophication, excess tropospheric ozone, and fine particulate concentrations. She also has strong interests in urban air pollution, particularly in London where she chairs the APRIL (Air Pollution Research in London) network. Professor ApSimon was a member of the Airborne Particles Expert Group, and the National Expert Group on Transboundary Air Pollution.

Professor ApSimon indicated that she had not undertaken any political activity during the past five years.

Dr David Carruthers is currently a director of Cambridge Environmental Research Consultants (CERC), specialists in small scale atmospheric flows and local air pollution. His research interests include the structure of the atmospheric boundary layer with a focus on the influence of complex topography and urban environments, and the modelling and assessment of local air quality. He has contributed to the understanding of the relative importance at local scales of atmospheric emissions from local sources and from sources on urban and regional scales. These methodologies have been applied to many cities as part of their review and assessment of air quality, a component part of the Air Quality Strategy. He has also developed models for flow over complex terrain with application in pollutant dispersion and wind energy. David Carruthers is a member of the Steering Committee for a series of workshops on the Harmonisation in Europe of Dispersion Models for Regulatory Purposes.

Dr Carruthers indicated that he had not undertaken any political activity during the past five years.

Dr David Carslaw is a University Research Fellow in the Institute for Transport Studies at the University of Leeds. He has over 15 years of experience in the public and private sectors, which spans interests in dispersion modelling, emissions inventories and mobile monitoring. His primary interests relate to transport as a source of air pollution. Recent interests include work to quantify primary nitrogen dioxide emissions from road traffic using ambient measurement data, the development of source apportionment approaches for urban air pollution and work to characterise the seasonal cycles of key atmospheric species. He has also published work related to mitigation measures such as the London congestion charging scheme and low emission zones.

Dr Carslaw indicated that he had not undertaken any political activity during the past five years.

Dr Roy Colvile is Senior Lecturer in Air Quality Management at Imperial College London. His current work focuses on personal exposure to air pollution, especially the causes of high levels of exposure to vehicle exhaust emissions. This includes assessment of the capability of current operational and advanced under development modelling techniques to represent the processes that determine exposure levels. This research facilitates evaluation of air quality management policies in terms of the effectiveness with which they are likely to result in improved population health. Exposure modelling is also an important part of health risk assessment, both prospective and retrospective, for exposure to emissions from accidents and chemical incidents as well as continuous emissions, where atmospheric science has to interact with epidemiology.

Dr Colvile indicated that he had not undertaken any political activity during the past five years.

Professor Dick Derwent OBE has spent much of his research career studying atmospheric chemistry. Initially, this work was carried out in the Air Pollution Division, Warren Spring Laboratory, Stevenage where he set up monitoring networks for ozone, NOx, carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons. He then spent a period of 16 years at the Harwell Laboratory building models of stratospheric ozone depletion, tropospheric ozone build-up, acid rain and ground level ozone formation. Having had a three year spell as a research manager in the Department of Environment, he joined the Meteorological Office. For 10 years he worked on global modelling of acid rain, photochemical ozone formation and the build up of greenhouse gases. Dick retired from the Met Office in 2003 to set up his own consultancy. He is the joint author of over 360 published papers dealing with acid rain, urban pollution, photochemical smog and atmospheric chemistry. He is Honorary Professor in School of Geography and Environmental Sciences at the University of Birmingham, Part-time Professor in the Department of Environmental Science and Technology at Imperial College London and Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Life Sciences, King’s College London. He was awarded the OBE in January 2001 in recognition of his contribution to atmospheric chemistry research at the Met Office.

Professor Derwent indicated that he had not undertaken any political activity during the past five years and does not hold any other ministerial appointments.

Dr Steve Dorling is a Senior Lecturer and Researcher in the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia (UEA), following previous positions at the Canadian Atmospheric Environment Service and the UK Meteorological Office. He also holds a non-executive position as Research Director of WeatherQuest Ltd, a weather forecast company based at UEA. As a Chartered Meteorologist, he is particularly interested in the role of weather and climate in impacting day to day, year to year and longer term variability in air quality. His current research embraces observational, empirical and modelling work. Steve is a member of the Peer Review College of the Natural Environment Research Council.

Dr Dorling indicated that he had not undertaken any political activity during the past five years.

Professor Bernard Fisher is currently an air quality assessor with Risk and Forecasting in Environmental Policy at the Environment Agency. His interests lie on air pollution modelling, dispersion models, air quality management, acid rain and environmental assessment, with special interest in energy generation and road transport. The focus of current research is to apply quantitative techniques to air pollution models for decision making. Recent experience has involved methods for implementing local air quality management. He has previously been a member of the Review Group on Acid Rain and the Airborne Particles Expert Group. Professor Fisher was until recently chairman of the COST 715 committee on “Meteorology applied to urban air pollution problems”. He is a visiting professor at the Universities of Greenwich and Hertfordshire.

Professor Fisher indicated that he had not undertaken any political activity during the past five years.

Professor Roy Harrison, O.B.E has occupied the Chair of Environmental Health at the University of Birmingham since 1991. He is Head of the Division of Environmental Health and Risk Management and leads a large research group focussing on air pollution issues from emissions, through atmospheric transformations, to effects on human health. He is past Chair of the Department of Environment Quality of Urban Air Review Group and DETR Airborne Particles Expert Group and currently sits as a member of the DEFRA Advisory Committee on Hazardous Substances, the Expert Panel on Air Quality Standards and Air Quality Expert Group.

Professor Harrison indicated that he had not undertaken any political activity during the past five years and does not hold any other ministerial appointments.

Dr Mathew Heal is a Senior Lecturer in Environmental Chemistry at the University of Edinburgh. His general research interests are in atmospheric chemistry and cover laboratory studies and modelling of the kinetics of tropospheric processes; measurement of atmospheric trace species and their exchange with the surface; and urban air chemistry and its relationship to human exposure and impact on human health. The latter includes collaborative research with epidemiologists and biomolecular toxicologists assessing the relationship between the chemical composition of airborne particles and health effects, and the measurement and mapping of spatial variability of urban NO2.

Dr Heal indicated that he had not undertaken any political activity during the past five years.

Professor Duncan Laxen is an environmental scientist with over 25 years experience of both research and consultancy work in the field of ambient air quality. He is Managing Director of Air Quality Consultants Ltd, and has provided consultancy services for a wide-range of public sector organisations, including Defra, the Highways Agency, the Environment Agency, the Greater London Authority, the Scottish Executive Enterprise, Transport and Lifelong Learning Department and a number of local authorities, as well as for a wide range of private sector companies. He has extensive experience of air quality measurement and assessment and has frequently acted as expert witness at Public Inquiries. Professor Laxen chairs the Department for Transport Panel set up to advise on air quality monitoring around Heathrow Airport. He is also a member of the Department of Health Committee on the Medical effects of Air Pollution. Professor Laxen represents the interests of Non-Governmental Organisation on the Steering Group set up by the European Commission to help with the Clean Air for Europe initiative. He also sits on various of the Commission's working groups. He is a member of the Environment Committee of the National Society for Clean Air and Environmental Protection. He has a visiting professorship in air quality management and assessment at the University of the West of England, Bristol.

Professor Laxen indicated that he had not undertaken any political activity during the past five years.

Dr Sarah Lindley is Lecturer in Geographical Information Systems in the School of Environment and Development, University of Manchester. She has over ten years experience in the development of spatially resolved emissions inventories and the wider use of Geographical Information Systems and Science for air quality management applications. Following her doctoral studies, she spent three years as a Research Fellow in the Atmospheric Research and Information Centre where she also gained practical expertise in carrying out applied air quality research, principally for local authority clients. In addition to her specific interests in the air quality field, she is a member of the University of Manchester's Centre for Urban and Regional Ecology and has worked on a variety of multi-disciplinary projects related to GIS, modelling and sustainable development.

Dr Lindley indicated that she had not undertaken any political activity during the past five years.

Dr Ian McCrae is a Principal Scientist working at TRL Limited (Transport Research Laboratory) within the air pollution and emissions team of the Environment Group. He is responsible for carrying out a programme of research investigating exhaust emissions from surface transport and their impact on air quality. This has involved both the monitoring and modelling of exhaust emissions and air pollution. He has been concerned with the investigation of the impact of traffic management and control on emissions and air quality, studies of inspection and maintenance procedures for the control of in-use emissions, development of local and strategic environmental impact assessment methodologies and the development of exhaust emission factor databases and models. He is also a member of the DfT expert panels (modelling and emissions) for the Heathrow Air Quality assessments.

Dr McCrae indicated that he had not undertaken any political activity during the past five years.

Mr John Stedman is a Principal Air Quality Consultant at NETCEN (part of AEA Technology plc) and leads a team responsible for data analysis, pollution climate mapping and air quality policy analysis. He has a BA in Chemistry from Wadham College, Oxford. He has worked in the air quality field since joining Warren Spring Laboratory in 1988 and joined AEA Technology in 1994. His research interests include urban and rural air quality, air quality policy, pollutant mapping and assessment of the health benefits resulting from the measures proposed to improve air quality. Mr Stedman has previously been a member of the Photochemical Oxidants Review Group and the Airborne Particles Expert Group and is a member of the Air Quality Expert Group.

Mr Stedman indicated that he had not undertaken any political activity during the past five years and does not hold any other ministerial appointments.

Ex Officio member for the Central Management and Control Unit of the automatic urban and rural networks:

Stephen Moorcroft is an environmental scientist with over 25 years experience, predominantly within the field of air quality. He is a Director at Air Quality Consultants Ltd (AQC) and currently provides services to a wide range of public sector organisations and private sector companies. Prior to joining AQC in November 2004, he was the Managing Director of Casella Stanger, where he had responsibility for a number of major Defra contracts related to air quality, including management of the UK Automatic Urban and Rural Network, research into particle numbers and concentrations, and monitoring of heavy metals. He has been closely involved with the process of local air quality management since its' inception, and has drafted technical guidance for review and assessment, has been responsible for the operation of a Helpdesk for dispersion modelling and air quality action plans. He has served on previous Government expert advisory panels and EC Working Groups. He currently sits on the Department for Transport Panel set up to advise on air quality monitoring around Heathrow, represents the interests of ECOS (a non-governmental organisation) on a CEN Working Group, and is Chair of the National Society for Clean Air’s (NSCA) Air Quality Committee.

Ex Officio member for the Quality Assurance and Quality Control of the automatic urban network and the Non-automatic monitoring networks:

Ken Stevenson is currently the AEA Technology - Netcen manager in Scotland. Ken has a BSc in physics from Imperial College and worked for 19 years in the Air Pollution Division of Warren Spring Laboratory before joining AEA Technology in 1994. Ken has detailed specialist knowledge of air pollution issues, including monitoring, development of monitoring strategies, air quality assessment and quality assurance and is currently project manager for QA/QC of the UK Automatic Urban and Rural Air Quality Monitoring Network. Ken works closely with the EC and the UK Government on air quality issues and policy development and has contributed to the EC Working Groups on particle monitoring and air quality network design. Ken manages large programmes for the UK government and private industry and is also an experienced international consultant with extensive project work throughout Europe, Asia and Africa.

Ex Officio member for the non-automatic Hydrocarbon monitoring networks:

Dr Paul Quincey is a Principal Research Scientist in the Analytical Science Group at the National Physical Laboratory. He joined NPL in 1986 with a technical background in physics and materials science, joining the Environmental Standards Section in 1994. He currently manages the UK Ambient Hydrocarbon Non-Automatic Air Quality Network for Defra. He is also responsible for a major project within the DTI's Valid Analytical Measurement Programme covering low concentration gas measurements, including air quality, which involves practical knowledge of the available technologies and issues affecting good measurements. Previously he has worked on large-scale field measurement campaigns and the establishment of the MCERTS instrument certification scheme for the Environment Agency. He has a good current knowledge of European Commission requirements for air quality measurements, partly through being an active member of the CEN working groups for benzene, PM2.5, and diffusive sampling (CEN TC 264 WGs 13, 15 and 11).

Ex Officio member for the National Atmospheric Emissions Inventory:

Dr Tim Murrells is a Principal Environmental Consultant at NETCEN, a part of AEA Technology. Since 1995, he has worked on the UK's National Atmospheric Emissions Inventory Programme and Greenhouse Gas Inventory Programme, where he leads a team providing the inventory for transport emissions. He regularly provides high level technical support to Defra, DfT and the Devolved Administrations on issues concerning transport emissions, air quality and climate change, including emission forecasting and scenario modelling work for a range of different transport policies. Key areas he has contributed to recently include the Government’s Ten Year Transport Plan and the Air Quality Strategy, as well as the UK positioning during negotiations on European directives on vehicle emissions and fuel standards. Tim was a member of the Airborne Particles Expert Group (APEG). He also has a research background in atmospheric and combustion chemistry at NETCEN and previously at the NOAA Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado.

Ex Officio member for the National atmospheric Emission Inventory:

Melanie Hobson is a senior air quality consultant at NETCEN (part of AEA Technology). She has an MSc from Imperial College in Environmental Technology. Her work focuses on the development of emission estimates and inventories as part of the National Atmospheric Emissions Inventory Programme; She is Secretariat of a European working group on emission monitoring and a technical member of a UK wide task force on emission projections for air quality pollutants. She has managed the air quality scenario work for Defra as part of the review of the air quality strategy and the UK’s contribution to the EC’s Clean Air for Europe Programme.

AQEG Ad-hoc Member:

Dr Bill Collins manages a research team on Atmospheric Composition and Climate at the Met Office’s Hadley Centre for climate research. He has been researching in the field of atmospheric chemistry since 1993 and played a key role in the development of the STOCHEM tropospheric chemistry model used by the Met Office. His particular research interests are the global-scale interactions between atmospheric chemistry, climate and air quality, especially those involving the biosphere.

Dr Collins indicated that he had not undertaken any political activity during the past five years and does not hold any other ministerial appointments.

AQEG Ad-hoc Member:

Professor Mike Ashmore is Professor of Environmental Science at the University of York. He is based in the Environment Department and also in the Stockholm Environment Institute at York. He has worked for over 25 years on the impacts of air pollutants. His current research includes the impacts of ozone and nitrogen deposition on natural ecosystems, modelling of ozone flux and deposition, development of critical loads methods for metals, and modelling of human exposure to air pollution. He has been actively involved in the development and application of critical levels and critical loads methods within the UN/ECE Convention on Transboundary Air Pollution. He was a member of the National Expert Group on Transboundary Air Pollution.

AQEG Ad-hoc Member:

Dr Mike Jenkin is a NERC Senior Fellow, based at Imperial College London. He has 24 years research experience in the general field of tropospheric oxidation chemistry and air pollution, especially related to the chemical transformations of emitted volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides. This has included laboratory kinetic and mechanistic studies; chemical mechanism development; adaptation and refinement of tropospheric models and their application to local and regional-scale air quality policy issues; and analysis and interpretation of air quality monitoring data. He has previously been a member of the Photochemical Oxidants Review Group.

Dr Jenkin indicated that he had not undertaken any political activity during the past five years.

AQEG Ad-hoc Member:

Dr Peter Woods B.A(Cantab.),D.Phil., FInstP., CPhys. is a Senior Fellow in Atmospheric Science in the Analytical Science Group at the National Physical Laboratory. He joined NPL in 1969, and took on the role of Head of the Environmental Standards Group, comprising 35 scientists and engineers, in 1990. He has been involved continuously in the development and application of new and advanced techniques for the measurements of atmospheric pollution and air quality, and in experimental research to increase scientific understanding of atmospheric chemistry and physics, stratospheric ozone depletion, greenhouse gases, and aspects of climate change. From the 1980s he was the Principal Scientist on a number of large international field campaigns involved with atmospheric measurements in Europe and the USA. He also led the Group developing the UK’s national facilities for providing gas standards and traceable techniques to underpin all UK measurements of the atmospheric emissions from industry, aircraft, vehicles etc., and air quality. He plays a leading role in the global Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Change. He is a member of a number of international standardisation committees, particularly CEN Committee 264, which covers all aspects of air quality and atmospheric pollution, and he led the development of the UK’s MCERTS Scheme, which is now being developed in Europe. He was the inaugural chair of the EC’s Network of Ambient Air Quality Reference laboratories (AQUILA), is a member of the EU’s Clean Air for Europe (CAFE) Steering Group, and has close contacts with technical representatives in the Commission.

Dr Woods has indicated that he has not undertaken any political activity during the past five years.