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2024 Lyman A. Ripperton Environmental Educator Award

Lyman A. Ripperton (1921–1978) spent his career as a practitioner in education and research for air pollution control. He left the Los Angeles County Air Pollution Control District in 1958 to assume a teaching and research position in the Department of Environmental Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. There, he initiated an air pollution education program that developed into one of the foremost of its kind in the United States. The Lyman A. Ripperton Environmental Educator Award is presented to an individual who has inspired students to achieve excellence in their professional and social endeavors. It recognizes the ability that only a few educators possess: to teach with rigor, humor, humility, and pride. Recipients of this award are educators we would have chosen as our teachers if we had a choice. They are known by the accomplishments of their students.
 
A&WMA presents the 2024 Lyman A. Ripperton Environmental Educator Award to Michael Kleinman.

Dr. Michael T. Kleinman is a Professor in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health in the College of Health Sciences and the Co-Director of the Air Pollution Health Effects Laboratory at the University of California, Irvine (UCI). He was previously an environmental scientist with the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and he later directed the Aerosol Exposure and Analytical Laboratory at Rancho Los Amigos Hospital in Downey, CA.

He has published more than 160 articles in peer-reviewed journals dealing with environmental contaminants and their effects on cardiopulmonary and immunological systems. He has been the lead investigator for multiple studies of the effects of O3, PM, NO2, and electronic and combustion cigarettes in controlled human and laboratory animal exposures. His recent studies demonstrate that inhalation of combustion-generated aerosols can promote airway allergies, induce inflammatory responses in the brain, accelerate the development of cardiovascular disease and that these effects may be associated with organic and elemental carbon components of the ultrafine fraction of the ambient aerosol.

He served on two National Research Council committees that examined issues in protecting deployed U.S. Forces from the effects of chemical and biological weapons and on several U.S. EPA Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee panels, including those addressing Ozone, Nitrogen Oxides and Particulate Matter. He served on USEPA’s Board of Scientific Councilors and the California Environmental Protection Agency Scientific Review Panel for Toxic Substances. He is a member of the Science Advisory Committee for the Bay Area Air Quality Management District. His current research is funded by NIEHS, NHLBI, NIA, California Tobacco Related Disease Research Program (TRDRP) and the U.S. Department of Defense.

Dr. Kleinman received a B.S in Chemistry from the City University of New York (Brooklyn College) in 1965, an M.S. in Chemistry from the Polytechnical University of Brooklyn in 1971 and a Ph.D. in Environmental Sciences from New York University in 1977. As a Professor at UC Irvine, he teaches courses in Environmental Health Science and Environmental Toxicology and lectures in the UCI School of Medicine Residency Program on Occupational Medicine. He has mentored more than 50 undergraduate research students and has been the major advisor for more than 50 M.S. and Ph.D. students.

He has been a member of A&WMA for nearly 50 years, is the Chair of the Orange County Chapter of the West Coast Section of A&WMA, previously chaired the environmental effects TCC, is a longstanding member and past chair of the Editorial Advisory Committee, past chair of the Critical Review Committee and has served as an organizer and/or program chair for several specialty conferences. He is honored to be the recipient of the 2024 Lyman A. Ripperton Environmental Educator Award.
Michael Kleinman

Michael Kleinman

Lyman A. Ripperton Environmental Educator Award