Ilias Kavouras

 About

Professor Ilias Kavouras is working on understanding and addressing climate and environmental justice with an emphasis on human health and well-being using an array of approaches from modeling to environmental and community participatory studies. Professor Kavouras’ research lies on the interface of chemical and health sciences to understand the coupling of atmospheric pollution and human health including the role of climate change. His research focuses on particulate matter sources and composition, development of aerosol characterization technologies, wildfires smoke emissions, geospatial, receptor and inverse modeling, and cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. He has developed novel analytical protocols, geospatial analysis methods and state-of-the-art instrumentation.

He co-authored more than 75 publications including one in Nature. His research has been funded by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), National Science Foundation (NSF), National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), and regional air quality and public health departments. He has served on review panels for the NSF, NIEHS, NOAA, EPA, and the US National Academies of Sciences.

Dr. Kavouras has held faculty positions at the Desert Research Institute at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and was the graduate program director at the University of Alabama in Birmingham. He was also the environmental health coordinator for the longitudinal children study in France. He teaches courses on exposure sciences, environmental chemistry and climate change. He has mentored more than 10 doctoral, graduate and undergraduate students.

Department and Climate Courses

EOHS647 Climate Change, Public Health and Politics

EOHS695 Public Health Preparedness and Response

Research Citations

Singh D, Tassew DD, Nelson J, Chalbot MG, Kavouras IG, Demokritou P, Tesfaigzi Y. (2022) Development of an Integrated Platform to Assess the Physicochemical and Toxicological Properties of Wood Combustion Particulate Matter. Chem Res Toxicol. 2022 Sep 19;35(9):1541-1557. doi: 10.1021/acs.chemrestox.2c00183. 

Singh D, Tassew DD, Nelson J, Chalbot MG, Kavouras IG, Tesfaigzi Y, Demokritou P. (2022) Physicochemical and toxicological properties of wood smoke particulate matter as a function of wood species and combustion condition. J Hazard Mater. 2023 Jan 5;441:129874. doi: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2022.129874.

Singh S, Johnson G, DuBois, DW, Kavouras IG. (2022) Assessment of the contribution of local and regional biomass burning on PM2.5 in New York/New Jersey metropolitan area. Aerosol and Air Quality Research, https://doi.org/10.4209/aaqr.220121

Singh S, Johnson G, Kavouras IG. (2022) The Effect of Transportation and Wildfires on the Spatiotemporal Heterogeneity of PM2.5 Mass in the New York-New Jersey Metropolitan Statistical Area. Environmental Health Insights. doi:10.1177/11786302221104016

Singh S, Kavouras IG. (2022) Trends of ground-level ozone in New York City area during 2007-2017. Atmosphere, 13(1), 114. https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos13010114.

Vora A, Chalbot MCC, Shin J, Kavouras IG (2021) Size distribution and lung deposition of particle mass generated by indoor activities. Indoor and Built Environment 30(9) 1344–1352 doi:10.1177/1420326X20939249  

Nelson J, Chalbot MCC, Tsiodra I, Mihalopoulos N, Kavouras IG (2020) Physicochemical characterization of personal exposures to smoke aerosol and PAHs of wildland firefighters in prescribed fires. Exposure and Health doi: 10.1007/s12403-020-00366-5