EPISODE508: HOMEChem Open House – House Observations of Microbial and Environmental Chemistry

This week on IAQradio+ will be broadcasting live from the Open House event for the HOMEChem study at the University of Texas Austin’s, J.J. Pickle Research Campus. The HOMEChem experiment (House Observations of Microbial and Environmental Chemistry) incorporates state-of-the-art measurements performed by over 20 investigators and their teams from the fields of chemistry, microbiology, and engineering. This experiment engages far more institutions and disciplines than ever applied to the study of a home. This research study is sponsored by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Chemistry of Indoor Environments Program and it will take place this summer at the University of Texas at Austin’s UTest House. Our guests for this special show are Marina Vance (HOMEChem Co-PIs / organizer) Delphine Farmer (HOMEChem Co-PIs / organizer) Atila Novoselac (HOMEChem host, specialist on the UTest house) Rich Corsi (HOMEChem host, indoor air specialist) Dr. Richard L. Corsi is the Joe J. King Chair in Engineering #2 in the Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering (CAEE) at The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin). He has served on the faculty of CAEE at UT Austin for nearly 25 years, after starting his career in the School of Engineering at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada. Dr. Corsi is highly regarded as an educator. He has received numerous teaching awards, and in 2015 was inducted into the Academy of Distinguished Teachers, an honor held for the top 5% of teachers across UT Austin. He also received a Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award for the entire UT system in 2016. Dr. Corsi’s research focuses on sources, physics and chemistry of indoor air pollution, particularly as related to pollutant interactions with indoor materials and innovative strategies for using such interactions to reduce human exposure to air pollution of both outdoor and indoor origin. He has served as principal investigator on over 70 projects, as major advisor to over 50 undergraduate and 70 graduate students, and as co-author on over 300 journal/conference papers, reports, and book chapters. His work has been featured in National Geographic, The Economist, Business Week, National Wildlife, Prevention, Men’s Health, National Public Radio’s Science Friday, Science Studio, the Academic Minute, the Canadian television series The Nature of Things, and more. Delphine Farmer, PhD Dr. Delphine Farmer is an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemistry at Colorado State