121st Distinguished Research Lecture: Shelly L. Miller
Life Lessons on the Path to Improving Urban Air Quality and Public Health
Thursday, April 20, 2023, 4–5 p.m. (Q&A and reception to follow)
Chancellor's Hall and Auditorium, Center for Academic Success and Engagement (CASE)
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Every day we breathe in enough air to fill an entire swimming pool. On average, Americans spend 54 years of our lives in our homes, six years outdoors and four years in our cars. So, what is in the air we are breathing?
We know that air pollution from traffic and industry, and chemicals from our everyday activities are in our air. The COVID-19 pandemic showed us that even airborne viruses are in the air we breathe. While clean outdoor air and water are considered a public good, improved indoor air quality traditionally has not been seen in this light. Poor air quality seriously impacts our health including exacerbating asthma, cardiovascular diseases, lung diseases and cancer, and it impacts many of our communities disproportionately.
Professor Shelly L. Miller has dedicated her career to teaching about urban air pollution sources, their impacts, and what we can do to improve air quality and our health. In this talk, Miller will share her impactful research on indoor air quality in our homes, in our disproportionately impacted communities and during the COVID-19 pandemic. She will also share some of the important life lessons learned on her path to improving our air and health.
Shelly L. Miller is a professor of Mechanical Engineering and faculty in the Environmental Engineering Program.
Miller received her master’s degree and doctorate in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. She also holds a bachelor’s degree in Applied Mathematics from Harvey Mudd College. 
Professor Miller investigates and teaches about urban air quality, focusing on understanding the impact of air pollution on public health and the environment. She is an expert on indoor environmental air quality, including airborne infectious disease transmission and control and air cleaning technologies.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Miller played an influential role on campus and globally through wide-ranging education and communication work to help mitigate the airborne transmission of the virus. 
Miller is a member of the Academy of Fellows of the International Society for Indoor Air Quality and Climate (ISIAQ) and is also an associate editor for Environmental Science and Technology. Professor Miller has published over 100 peer reviewed articles on air quality, authored a chapter on Indoor Air Quality in the Environmental Engineering Handbook, and advocates for women in the academy and engineering.