Americans now spend 18 hours indoors for every hour spent outdoors. Indoor pollution adversely affects the health of the American public, worker productivity, electrical and mechanical equipment, and cultural artifacts. Despite the importance of the indoor environment, there are no academic institutional leaders in indoor environmental science and engineering. This Integrative Graduate Education and Training (IGERT) award supports the establishment of a unique interdisciplinary graduate training program in Indoor Environmental Science and Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin (UT). The goal of this IGERT program, a collaborative effort involving six colleges/schools at UT, is to educate a pioneering generation of research leaders in the field of indoor environmental science and engineering, and to provide them with the skills necessary to address the human dimension of the indoor environment. They will gain expertise through research in one or more inter-connected areas, including: outdoor-to-indoor transport of pollutants, sources of indoor pollution, indoor pollutant transformations and control systems, and exposure of building occupants and sensitive materials to indoor pollutants. In addition to novel research experiences, IGERT trainees will be educated through an interdisciplinary graduate curriculum, a professional development course that includes student presentations and discussions of scientific ethics, internships at national institutes/research labs, participation in an annual symposium, and public outreach efforts. This IGERT program will address the sources, impacts, and control of indoor pollutants and will develop leaders who can solve indoor environmental problems within an interdisciplinary framework, and who can communicate effectively with regulators and the public. IGERT is an NSF-wide program intended to meet the challenges of educating U.S. Ph.D. scientists and engineers with the interdisciplinary background, deep knowledge in a chosen discipline, and the technical, professional, and personal skills needed for the career demands of the future. The program is intended to catalyze a cultural change in graduate education by establishing innovative new models for graduate education and training in a fertile environment for collaborative research that transcends traditional disciplinary boundaries.
IGERT: Indoor Environmental Science and Engineering – An Emerging Frontier Americans are indoor creatures, spending on average 18 hours indoors for every hour spent outdoors. Furthermore, health risks associated with pollutants in indoor air and on indoor surfaces far exceed those of other environmental media. The goals of this IGERT program were to substantially expand the knowledge base related to indoor environmental quality and its improvement, and to provide a holistic educational experience to a pioneering generation of indoor environmental scientists and engineers who will extend this emerging field into the next several decades. Trainees in this IGERT program engaged in cutting-edge research, classroom education, mentoring experiences, and other important professional development activities described below. A total of 22 Ph.D. students (trainees) were funded through this program, with an even greater number of program affiliates who benefitted from program activities. Trainees and their advisors were associated with eight different departments across seven schools or colleges at the University of Texas, from Psychology and Economics to Mechanical Engineering and Microbiology. Of the 22 trainees, nearly 60% are from groups considered to be under-represented in science and engineering. The program boasts a 100% retention rate of trainees, with nearly all graduates to date accepting positions in academia and at government research laboratories. The research highlights associated with this highly interdisciplinary IGERT program are numerous and cover a wide spectrum of issues related to indoor environmental quality. Trainees have studied indoor air quality in public schools and observed significant improvements in standardized test performances following renovations intended to improve indoor air quality in classrooms. Field sampling completed before and after smoking bans clearly showed dramatic improvements in indoor air quality across 17 bars in Austin. Trainees have also evaluated the effects of socioeconomic status and ethnicity on exposure to toxic chemicals in homes, and the increasing chemical reactivity of homes and generation of new pollutants due to changes in residential building design and construction, as well as increasing use of reactive green materials and fragrances. Computer modeling, field sampling, and laboratory tests on germ cells have been used to better understand sources, levels, and effects of endocrine disrupting chemicals found in homes, schools, offices, and even retail stores. Finally, trainees have developed into leaders in the innovative control of indoor air pollution, evaluating numerous existing technologies that sometimes actually have detrimental effects on indoor air quality, and developing novel strategies and technologies for improving indoor air quality, including modified activated carbon, passive materials that preclude an energy penalty when used, and optimization of ventilation strategies. Trainees in the IGERT Indoor Environmental Science and Engineering program engaged in substantial public outreach, with over 3,000 total student-hours of outreach logged over the course of the program. Outreach activities varied from a major public workshop, to working with local high schools to incorporate indoor air quality into science curricula, assisting local weatherization programs through development of educational materials related to weatherization and indoor air quality, judging science projects at elementary schools, and much more. These efforts were supplemented with additional professional development activities. Trainees served as mentors to undergraduate research assistants, attended several dozen professional conferences, hosted annual meetings and presented their research and outreach activities to research giants and practitioners in their field, completed internships at major government research labs, worked as interdisciplinary teams to develop and publish two separate editorials in high impact research journals, and independently developed, secured funding for, and executed a highly successful two-day symposium on indoor air quality and cook stoves in developing countries that was attended by nearly 200 individuals. The IGERT Indoor Environmental Science and Engineering program led to several institutional benefits at the University of Texas at Austin. The program was responsible for the development of four new graduate courses and one new undergraduate course. Success of the program was partially responsible for the hiring of one new assistant professor who studies endocrine disrupting chemicals in buildings. And one important legacy of the program is that it motivated several new academic bridges between departments and colleges that have and will continue to inspire new interdisciplinary collaborations across the University of Texas campus.
