Kelsey Bilsback, PhD

Dr. Kelsey Bilsback is a senior scientist at PSE Healthy Energy with expertise in mechanical engineering and atmospheric science. Her research uses modeling tools to quantify the air quality, health, and equity impacts of energy policies and planning. Examples of her work include quantifying the indoor and outdoor air quality impacts of methane leaks from the oil and gas sector and evaluating the health and equity impacts of utilities’s energy production portfolios.

Prior to joining PSE, Dr. Bilsback was a postdoctoral researcher in atmospheric science at Colorado State University, where she used chemical-transport models tools to assess the air quality, health, and climate impacts of energy transition policies.

During her PhD, Dr. Bilsback studied solid-fuel cookstove emissions and their impacts on air quality, health, and climate. She developed a novel laboratory test protocol for solid-fuel cookstoves used to study various aspects of cookstove emissions in two large-scale laboratory campaigns. She also utilized low-cost sensors to quantify the cookstove emissions during several field campaigns in Uganda, India, China, and Honduras. Dr. Bilsback has a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Colorado State University and a BA in Physics from Boston University. Access Dr. Bilsback’s work on Research Gate and Google Scholar.

Selected Peer-Reviewed and Technical Reports:

• Makhijani, A., Kinkhabwala. Y, J. Jaeger, Bilsback, K. R., Hill, L.L, Peltier. L, Lukanov. B, Krieger, E.M. Energy Affordability in Maryland: Integrating Public Health, Equity, and Climate, (2023). PSE Healthy Energy and IEER.
• Gordon, J., Bilsback, K. R., Fiddler, M. N., Pokhrel, R. P., Fischer, E. V., Pierce, J. R., & Bililign, S. (2023). The Effects of Trash, Residential Biofuel, and Open Biomass Burning Emissions on Local and Transported PM2.5 and its Attributed Mortality in Africa. GeoHealth.
• Bilsback, K. R., He, Y., Cappa, C. D., Chang R.Y.-W., Croft, B., Martin, R. V., Ng, N. L., Seinfeld, J. H., Pierce, J. R., & Jathar, S. H. (2023). Vapors are Lost to Wall, Not to Particles on the Wall: Artifact-Corrected Parameters from Chamber Experiments and Implications for Global Secondary Organic Aerosol. Environmental Science & Technology
• Lebel, E. D., Michanowicz, D., Bilsback, K. R., Hill, L. L., Goldman, J. S. W., Domen, J. K., Jaeger, J. M., Ruiz, A., & Shonkoff, B. C. (2022). Composition, emissions, and air quality impacts of Hazardous Air Pollutants in unburned natural gas from residential stoves in California. Environmental Science & Technology.
• Bilsback, K. R., Krieger, E. M., Lukanov, B., Shetty, K., Smith, A. (2022). Incorporating Health and Equity Metrics into the Minnesota Power 2021 Integrated Resource Plan. PSE Healthy Energy.
• O’Dell, K., Bilsback, K. R., Ford, B., Martenies, S. E., Magzamen, S., Fischer, E.V., Pierce, J.R. (2021). Estimated Mortality and Morbidity Attributable to Smoke Plumes in the United States: Not Just a Western US Problem. GeoHealth.
• Jathar, S. H., Cappa, C. D., He, Y., Pierce, J. R., Chuang, W., Bilsback, K. R., Seinfeld, J. H., Zaveri, R. A., Shrivastava, M. (2021). A computationally efficient model to represent the chemistry, thermodynamics, and microphysics of secondary organic aerosols (simpleSOM): model development and application to ɑ-pinene SOA. Environmental Science: Atmospheres.
• Croft, B. Martin, R. V., Moore, R., Russell, L., Saliba, G., Gali, M., Chang, R., Bilsback, K. R., Kodros, J. K.,  Pierce, J. R. (2021). Factors controlling marine aerosol size distributions and their climate effects over the Northwest Atlantic Ocean region. Atmospheric Chemistry & Physics.
• Stolz, D. C., Bilsback, K. R., Pierce, J. R., Rutledge, S. A. (2021). Evaluating empirical lightning parameterizations in global atmospheric models. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.
• Bilsback, K. R., Kerry, D., Carter, E., Croft, B., Ford, B., Martin, R. V., Pierce, J. R. (2020). Beyond SOx reductions from shipping: Assessing the impact of NOx and carbonaceous-particle controls on human health and climate. Environmental Research Letters.
• Emerson, E. W., Hodshire, A. L., DeBolt, H., Bilsback, K. R., Pierce, J. R., McMeeking, G. R., Farmer, D. K. (2020). Revisiting particle dry deposition and its role in radiative effect estimates. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 
• Bilsback, K. R., Baumgartner, J., Cheeseman, M., Ford, B., Kodros, J. K., Li, X.,  Ramnarine, E., Tao, S., Zhang, Y., Carter, E., Pierce, J. R. (2020). Estimated aerosol health and radiative effects of the residential coal ban in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region of China. Aerosol and Air Quality Research.
• Jathar, S. H., Sharma, N., Bilsback, K. R., Pierce, J. R., Vanhanen, J., Gordon, T. D., Volckens, J. (2020). Emissions and radiative impacts of sub-10 nm particles from biofuel and fossil fuel cookstoves. Aerosol Science and Technology.
• Piedrahita, R., Johnson, M., Bilsback, K. R., L’Orange, C. Kodros, J. K., Eilenberg, S. R., Naluwagga, A., Shan, M., Sambandam, S., Clark, M., Reynolds, B., Pierce, J. R., Balakrishnan, K., Robinson, A. L., Volckens, J. (2020). Comparing regional stove-usage patterns and using those patterns to model indoor air quality impacts. Indoor Air.
• Benka-Coker, M. L., Peel, J. L., Volckens, J., Good, N., Bilsback, K. R., L’Orange, C., Quinn, C., Young, B. N., Rajkumar, S., Wilson, A., Tryner, J., Africano, S., Osorto, A. B., Clark, M. L. (2019). Kitchen concentrations of fine particulate matter and particle number concentration in households using biomass cookstoves in rural Honduras. Environmental Pollution.
• Williamson, C. J., Kupc, A., Axisa, D., Bilsback, K. R., Bui, T.,  Campuzano-Jost, P., Dollner, M., Froyd, K. D., Hodshire, A. L., Jimenez, J. L., Kodros, J. K., Luo, G., Murphy, D. M., Nault, B. A., Ray, E. A., Weinzierl, B. B., Wilson, J. C., Yu, F., Yu, P., Pierce, J. R., Brock, C. A. (2019). A Large Source of Cloud Condensation Nuclei from New Particle Formation in the Tropics. Nature. Nature.
• Bilsback, K. R., Dahlke, J., Fedak, K. M., Good, N.,  Hecobian, A., Herckes, P., L’Orange, C., Mehaffy, J., Sullivan, A., Tryner, J., Van Zyl, L., Walker, E. S., Zhou, Y., Pierce, J. R., Wilson, A., Peel, J. L., Volckens, J. (2019). A Laboratory Assessment of 120 Air Pollutant Emissions from Biomass and Fossil-Fuel Cookstoves. Environmental Science and Technology.
• Van Zyl, L., Tryner, J., Bilsback, K. R., Good, N., Hecobian, A., Sullivan, A., Zhou, Y., Peel, J. L., Volckens, J. (2019). Effects of Fuel Moisture Content on Emissions from a Rocket-Elbow Cookstove. Environmental Science & Technology.
• Saliba, G., Subramanian, R., Bilsback, K. R., L’Orange, C., Volckens, J., Johnson, M., Robinson, A. L. (2018). Aerosol Optical Properties and Climate Implications of Emissions from Traditional and Improved Cookstoves. Environmental Science & Technology.
• Bilsback, K. R., Eilenberg, S. R., Good, N., Heck, L., Johnson, M., Kodros, J. K., Lipsky, E. M., L’Orange, C., Pierce, J. R., Robinson, A. L., Subramanian, R., Tryner, J., Wilson, A., Volckens, J. (2018). The Firepower Sweep Test: A Novel Approach to Cookstove Laboratory Testing. Indoor Air.
• Eilenberg, S. R., Bilsback, K. R., Johnson, M., Kodros, J. K., Lipsky, E. M., Naluwagga, A., Fedak, K. M., Benka-Coker, M., Reynolds, B., Peel, J., Clark, M., Shan, M., Sambandam, S., L’Orange, C., Pierce, J. R.,  Subramanian, R., Volckens, J., Robinson, A. L. (2018). Field Measurements of Solid-Fuel Cookstove Emissions from Uncontrolled Cooking in China, Honduras, Uganda, and India. Atmospheric Environment.
• Kodros, J. K., Carter, E., Brauer, M., Volckens, J., Bilsback, K. R., L’Orange, C., Johnson, M., Pierce, J. R. (2018). Quantifying the Contribution to Uncertainty in Mortality Attributed to Household, Ambient, and Joint Exposure to PM2.5 from Residential Solid-Fuel Use. GeoHealth.