Technical Advisory Committee

John Balmes, MD

Dr. John Balmes is Professor of Medicine at UCSF and Professor of Environmental Health Sciences in the School of Public Health at UC Berkeley. He is an Attending Physician in the UCSF Division of Occupational and Environmental Medicine and the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at the Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital. At UC Berkeley, he is the Director of the Northern California Center for Occupational and Environmental Health and the UC Berkeley-UCSF Joint Medical Program. He is also one of the Principal Investigators of the Berkeley-Stanford Children’s Environmental Health Center. Dr. Balmes has been studying the effects of occupational and environmental agents on respiratory and cardiovascular health for over 38 years. He was appointed Physician Member of the California Air Resources Board in 2008.

Katharine Hammond, PhD

Katharine Hammond is a professor of Environmental Health Sciences and an Associate Dean of Academic Affairs at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health Environmental Health Sciences Division. She has held her professorship for over 24 years and teaches courses on health risk assessment, regulation and policy, and characterization of airborne chemicals. Hammond’s research interests include the health impacts on asthmatic children from particulate air pollution and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, the health effects from secondhand smoke and policy efforts for tobacco control, and the neurologic and reproductive effects of hexane on workers. Hammond received her PhD in chemistry from Brandeis University and a master’s of science in environmental health sciences from Harvard University.

Thomas Kirchstetter, PhD

Thomas Kirchstetter is a Senior Scientist, the Director of the Energy Analysis and Environmental Impacts Division, and the Head of the Sustainable Energy and Environmental Systems Department at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He holds a concurrent appointment as an Adjunct Professor in Civil & Environmental Engineering at UC Berkeley, where he teaches courses and mentors undergraduate and graduate student researchers. Kirchstetter has served as an editor of the journals Aerosol Science & Technology and Atmospheric Chemistry & Physics and organizer of the International Conference on Carbonaceous Particles in the Atmosphere. Kirchstetter is well known for his research on the optical properties of carbonaceous aerosols and the quantification of emissions from motor vehicles. His current research interests in air pollution science and technology include the in-use performance and durability of vehicle emission controls, the environmental impact of freight transport, inventing and benchmarking air pollution sensors, and evaluating the benefits and barriers to the scale-up of municipal solid waste-to-energy.

Rachel Morello-Frosch, PhD

Rachel Morello-Frosch is professor at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Public Health and the Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management. She teaches courses on environmental health and development, and ethnicity and culture in health status and behavior. Morello-Frosch’s research focuses on environmental health, environmental justice, and the difficulties faced by communities of color and the poor who experience high exposures to environmental hazards and who are more vulnerable to the toxic effects of pollution due to poverty, malnutrition, discrimination, and underlying health conditions. She is also interested in evaluating the influence of community participation on environmental health research, science, regulation, and policy-making, as well as in developing methods to foster community-based participatory research. Morello-Frosch received her PhD in environmental health science and a master of public health in epidemiology and biostatistics from UC Berkeley.

Ajay Pillarisetti, PhD

Ajay Pillarisetti is a postdoctoral scholar in the Household Energy, Climate, and Health Research Group at University of California, Berkeley. His research focuses on describing and mitigating the health impacts of household energy use. He develops tools and techniques to quantify exposure to air pollution, to describe household characteristics and energy use, and to better understand time-activity patterns. He received a PhD in Environmental Health Sciences from Berkeley, an MPH in Global Environmental Health from Rollins School of Public Health, and a BS in Biology from Emory College.