The following are currently considered as priority areas for research within the IGERT program. Examples are provided below each general topic area. Each area is considered inclusive of all participating departments in this IGERT program and will be designed to facilitate interdisciplinary interactions. Overlap between research areas is also encouraged. Students with interests in other aspects of indoor environmental science and engineering are also encouraged to apply.

Indoor Sources and Transformations

• Characterization of primary sources of indoor pollution, source dynamics, and influences on human exposure to related pollutants. Unresolved sources include a wide range of cleaning agents, fragrances and aromatherapy products, green building materials, and more.
• Sorptive interactions between indoor air pollutants and indoor materials, including state-of-the-art model development, experiments for parameter estimation, effects on human exposure, and possible innovative use of sorptive interactions as passive control strategies to improve indoor environmental quality.
• Ozone initiated indoor chemistry, including the development of novel models and experiments to simulate building chemistry, influences of outdoor air pollution on indoor chemistry, and human exposure to indoor reaction products (including near source and near head chemistry associated with cleaning and personal care products).
• Indoor surface chemistry, including analyses and design of building materials for the removal of reactive pollutants, e.g., ozone, and reduction of harmful by-product formation, analysis of by-product formation and emission dynamics, and human inhalation and dermal exposure to by-products of surface reactions.
• Human dimension and toxicological elements to any of the aforementioned topics, including psychological factors and effects, economic incentives and impacts, and toxicological effects associated with products of indoor chemistry.

Biological Contamination and Control

• Characterization of conditions that lead to the growth of toxigenic fungi in building environments, including physical and chemical properties of building materials and critical moisture contents of those materials. Projects in this area could also make use of state-of-the-art methods for assessing material properties, and fungal growth and viability, and for investigating methods for altering material properties to reduce excessive fungal growth.
• Investigation of measures to remediate biological contamination of buildings, including liquid, foam, radiation and thermal treatment, as well as gaseous disinfection. Research in this area could make use of unique chamber facilities to explore remediation methods for a wide range of biological agents and the effects of environmental conditions on the remediation process.
• Novel approaches for sampling and identification of fungal contamination of buildings, including both particle and gas sampling systems. Research in this area could include, for example, development of a database of microbial VOC fingerprints associated with specific toxigenic molds growing on specific building materials.
• Airborne transmission and control of infectious diseases, including SARS, tuberculosis, avian flu and other flu viruses. Research in this area could involve the development of novel models for predicting the release, transport, viability, deposition, and uptake of infectious viruses and bacteria, experiments to determine model parameters using benign surrogates, and the design of engineered control technologies or infection reduction strategies.
• Human dimension and toxicological elements to any of the aforementioned topics, including psychological factors and effects, economic incentives and impacts, and toxicological effects associated with biological agents and their metabolites.

Innovative Indoor Environmental Control Strategies

• Investigation of novel indoor air pollution control strategies including both engineering and non-engineering solutions to indoor environmental problems. Examples include innovative use of sorptive interactions for passive and active controls, development and application of sensors to target air cleaning, investigation of social controls to limit spread of pandemics, evaluation of incentive-based indoor air quality programs.
• Evaluation of secondary impacts of control strategies. Many control technologies and techniques generate problematic byproducts or have other unintended consequences. Projects in this area could characterize emission rates, measure byproduct formation, evaluate the perceived benefits, explore health impacts, and compare dissimilar costs and and benefits (i.e. increased ozone exposure vs. decreased particle exposure).
• Explore secondary data streams associated with engineering controls. Evaluation of in-use control technologies (i.e. HVAC filters) provides a history of the indoor environment in which the device is employed. Chemical, particulate, and microbiological analyses reveal information about the concentrations of indoor pollutants over the lifetime of control utilization. An understanding of control strategy prevalence indicates consumer knowledge and can serve as the basis for intervention studies as well as forecasting human exposure during extraordinary events.

Children's Exposure to Contaminants in Indoor Environments

• Assessment of infant and childhood exposures to toxins in various environments, including nurseries, daycare facilities, and schools.
• Characterization and attribution of sources that contribute to infant and childhood exposures to indoor pollutants, including sources of outdoor origin, e.g., transportation-related pollutants that penetrate into buildings.
• Strategies for the reduction of infant and childhood exposures to pollutants in building environments.
• Toxicological impacts of specific indoor pollutants, e.g., phthalates or secondary organic aerosols, on infants and children.
• Human dimension elements that affect infant and childhood exposures to indoor pollution, including psychological influences on parental decisions to affect infant/childhood exposures to pollution, and economic impacts on families.

Other

• Environmental justice issues related to indoor environments
• Interactions between global warming and building environments
• Indoor sources of, and human exposure to, nano-particles