Judith C. Chow

Dr. Judith C. Chow serves as a Research Professor and holds the Nazir and Mary Ansari Chair in Entrepreneurialism and Science in the Division of Atmospheric Sciences at the Desert Research Institute (DRI) in Reno, Nevada. She also maintains an affiliation with the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR) as a member of the graduate faculty in the Department of Environmental Science and Atmospheric Sciences Program within the Department of Physics, where she advises graduate students pursuing Masters and Doctoral degrees. With over 40 years of experience in atmospheric, air quality, and environmental health research, Dr. Chow has established herself as a leading international expert in particulate matter analysis and source attribution.

Dr. Chow earned her Sc.D. in Environmental Science and Physiology (1985) and M.S. in Environmental Health Sciences (1983) from Harvard University, and her B.S. in Biology (1974) from Fu-Jen Catholic University in Taiwan. Her educational background has provided a strong foundation for her interdisciplinary research that bridges environmental science, chemistry, and public health.

Dr. Chow's research focuses on air quality, atmospheric chemistry, and particulate matter, with particular expertise in black carbon, elemental carbon, and organic carbon analysis. As founder and leader of DRI's Environmental Analysis Facility (EAF), she heads a research group developing and applying advanced analytical methods to characterize atmospheric particles for source attribution and their effects on health, climate, visibility, ecosystems, and cultural artifacts. Her current strategic priorities include expansion of EAF capabilities to obtain more information from archived samples of existing monitoring networks using thermal and mass spectrometric technologies; improving detection of brown carbon in speciation network samples; applying microsensors to human exposure estimates and fugitive dust control; and simulating source profile changes using a photochemical flow tube reactor.

Analysis of Dr. Chow's recent publications reveals a strong focus on practical applications of air quality research across diverse geographical contexts from California highways to industrial sites in Asia and Africa. Her work spans multiple emerging pollution sources like lithium-ion battery fires and spacecraft materials while maintaining her longstanding expertise in traditional pollution sources including vehicle emissions, coal mining, and biomass burning. The research demonstrates increasing sophistication in monitoring technologies and source characterization methods.

• ISI Highly Cited researcher in ecology and environment with over 28,000 citations and an h-index of 83
• Stanford University's Top 2% of the World's Most Cited Scientists
• Re-appointed to U.S. EPA's Clean Air Science Advisory Committee (2021) after previous service from 2015-2018
• Member of U.S. National Academy of Sciences Committee on Research Priorities for Airborne Particulate Matter
• Member of U.S. National Academy of Engineering's Committee on Energy Futures and Air Pollution in China and the United States
• Co-editor for Aerosol and Air Quality Research and Particuology

Dr. Chow has been principal investigator or major collaborator on more than 50 large atmospheric studies and numerous smaller ones. Her research leadership crosses traditional university departmental lines, involving collaboration with chemists, physicists, biologists, engineers, biostatisticians, toxicologists, epidemiologists, and physicians. She has established cooperative agreements and collaborative research projects with environmental scientists across more than 20 countries worldwide. Dr. Chow's Environmental Analysis Facility serves as a hub for international research on particulate matter characterization, with current projects assessing contributions from seaport operations to adverse air quality in southern California, measuring real-world emissions in Canada's Oil Sands Region, designing air quality networks in developing countries for the World Bank, and evaluating effects of photochemical aging on biomass burning emissions.