U.S. EPA Provides $30 Million to Create Research Centers at Three Universities

From EPA:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 2, 2016

U.S. EPA Provides $30 Million to Create Research Centers at Three Universities

Carnegie Mellon, Harvard and Yale will study how to reduce air quality impacts on public health

WASHINGTON –The funding the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is announcing will be used to investigate regional differences in air pollution and the effects of global climate change, technology, and societal choices on local air quality and health.

“We eagerly anticipate the centers’ new models and research insights that will lead to improved air quality and public health,” said Dan Costa, national program director for EPA’s air, climate and energy research program. “Understanding how to maintain and improve air quality as the climate changes is the first step in working together to reduce risks.”

These grants to the universities are funded through EPA’s Science to Achieve Results (STAR) program:

• Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Penn. to create the Center for Air, Climate, and Energy Solutions (CACES), which will improve current air quality models; develop new, faster, simpler models for evaluating policy options; and conduct detailed measurement studies in Pittsburgh, Los Angeles and Austin to identify the factors influencing regional differences in air pollution concentrations.

• Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. for Regional Air Pollution Mixtures: The Past and Future Impacts of Emission Controls and Climate Change on Air Quality and Health, which will investigate pollutant mixtures across the country using past data and future projections; will examine how changes in emissions, climate, and other factors affect pollution mixtures; and will predict how future changes in social and economic factors will affect air pollution and health-related impacts.

• Yale University, New Haven, Conn. for SEARCH: Solutions for Energy, AiR, Climate and Health, which will research the impacts of changes in the use of energy in the power and transportation sectors, such as impacts of expansion of the port of Baltimore following the expansion of the Panama Canal.

Since 1999, the work of EPA’s own staff scientists has been complemented by EPA funded research centers that enable some of the nation’s best scientific experts in academia to research pressing environmental issues. Research results from these centers have contributed significantly to advancing air quality and environmental health science, and have been used by researchers and policymakers around the world. The centers that are being announced today represent the next generation of these important and productive air research centers.