Student Receives Award from Aviation Sustainability Center.
Environmental health doctoral student Chloe Kim has won the Joseph A. Hartman Student Paper Competition from ASCENT, the Aviation Sustainability Center.
The competition is named in memory of Joseph A. Hartman, a founding member and lead investigator of the Partnership for Air Transportation Noise and Emissions Reduction at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who passed away in 2004. The $1,250 cash prize was awarded at an ASCENT event in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on April 3-4.
Kim’s paper, “Spatial and Temporal Patterns of Ambient Ultrafine Particulate Matter (UFP) in Communities Along an Arrival Aircraft Pathway,” is part of an School of Public Health study monitoring ambient UFP concentrations at six sites at varying distances from a major arrival aircraft pathway to Boston Logan International Airport. Kim has been involved in the study from the beginning, including site selection, field data collection, data processing, and data analysis.
UFPs are associated with an array of adverse health outcomes, and Kim says understanding how planes contribute to UFP exposure along flight paths and near airports is becoming ever more important as aviation activities are expected to continue to increase. She says she is grateful for ASCENT’s recognition of her team’s work and of the importance of their findings.
ASCENT, also known as the Center of Excellence for Alternative Jet Fuels and Environment, is a cooperative aviation research organization co-led by Washington State University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. ASCENT is funded by the FAA, NASA, the Department of Defense, Transport Canada, and the Environmental Protection Agency, working to create science-based solutions for the aviation industry’s biggest challenges.