Congratulations to Dr. Marianne Hatzopoulou on being named Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Transport Decarbonization and Air Quality.
Dr. Hatzopoulou is a professor in the department of civil & mineral engineering, a director of Positive Zero Transport Futures, and leads the Transportation and Air Quality (TRAQ) research group.
Learn more about her work at her CivMin faculty web page.
Research summary
The transportation sector is poised to experience an unprecedented transformation, due to both socio-economic shifts and the growing need to sharply reduce greenhouse gas emissions to combat climate change. While electric cars, ride hailing apps and e-commerce may have climate benefits, their implications for air quality and environmental justice are not fully understood. This knowledge gap hinders our ability to identify the best possible solutions.
As Canada Research Chair in Transport Decarbonization and Air Quality, Dr. Marianne Hatzopoulou aims to address this gap by improving transportation emission inventories. She and her research team are enhancing our capacity to model air quality and environmental justice under decarbonization pathways and to develop new platforms to track human behaviour and air quality across communities and over time. Their findings will help industry, government and communities in Canada and around the world to prioritize transportation innovations that both benefit society and reduce emissions.
Government of Canada Canada Research Chairs website
Dr. Hatzopoulou's new Canada Research Chair was announced by U of T News:
How cities affect our health is the research interest of Marianne Hatzopoulou, a professor in the department of civil and mineral engineering in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering. She was named a new tier one chair in transport decarbonization and air quality. Hatzopoulou creates models of emissions from road transportation and evaluates how this air pollution affects the local population. Not long ago, she was involved in a study that used low-cost sensors to measure carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, coarse particulate matter and other pollutants at nearly 70 sites across Beirut, identifying air pollution hot spots where people were most at risk. She also examined the effects of natural gas fracking in the northeast region of British Columbia. Another study examined the potential improvement in air quality resulting from the widespread adoption of electric vehicles.
Excerpted from "From Africana development to decarbonization: 34 U of T researchers awarded Canada Research Chairs" by Scott Anderson, U of T News, November 16, 2022.