2023 Frank A. Chambers Excellence in Air Pollution Control Award

Frank A. Chambers (1885–1951) was a founder of the Smoke Prevention Association of America, a forerunner of the Air & Waste Management Association, and was instrumental in building the foundation for A&WMA. His pioneering ideas for smoke control were employed by many cities across the United States. The Frank A. Chambers Excellence in Air Pollution Control Award is presented annually by the Association for outstanding achievement in the science and art of air pollution control. It requires technical accomplishments considered to be major contributions, the merits of which have been widely recognized by persons in the field. The coverage is intentionally broad, since it recognizes achievement in any line of technical endeavor in air pollution control, from pure research to applied science.

 
A&WMA presents the 2023 Frank A. Chambers Excellence in Air Pollution Control Award to Lung-Wen Antony Chen.
 
Lung-Wen Antony Chen, Ph.D., joined the School of Public Health, University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) in 2015 and is currently an Associate Professor of Environmental and Occupational Health. Dr. Chen has led the Urban Air Quality Lab, taught courses in air pollution, atmospheric measurements, environmental health, and research methods, as well as serving as the graduate coordinator and thesis/dissertation advisor for more than 10 students. Dr. Chen obtained his doctoral degree in Chemical Physics with an emphasis on atmospheric chemistry from the University of Maryland. Before joining UNLV, Dr. Chen worked at the Division of Atmospheric Sciences, Desert Research Institute (DRI). In his current and prior positions, Dr. Chen has over 20 years of experience in air quality research, particularly in the areas of aerosol measurements, exposure assessments, and receptor modeling-source apportionment. He has authored 100+ peer-reviewed publications with 5,000+ citations as of April 2023.

Dr. Chen participated in the development of the IMPROVE_A thermal/optical analysis protocol which has been adopted at more than 200 long-term monitoring sites in the U.S. to track air pollution control effectiveness for organic and black carbon levels. Dr. Chen conceived the method expansion to measure aerosol light absorption at seven wavelengths and to quantify brown carbon aerosols. This came to fruition with the development, commercialization, and worldwide deployment of the DRI Model 2015 Carbon Analyzer. He further devised original ways to analyze complex, multivariate datasets from the analyzer using a novel Hybrid Environmental Receptor Model (HERM) that he developed with Chinese scientists to improve the implementation and evaluation of receptor-oriented source apportionment studies. Dr. Chen’s other significant contributions include streamlining microscopic methods to measure bioaerosols, organizing citizen-science efforts to evaluate community exposures, characterizing emissions from biomass burning and diesel emissions, assembling source profiles for an update to the U.S. EPA SPECIATE Database, applying HERM and other receptor- or source-orientated models to particulate matter source apportionment in U.S. and China, and designing/evaluating monitoring networks for the World Bank in African countries. Findings from his work have reinforced the scientific basis for reducing pollutant emissions and risks, especially with respect to primary emissions and secondary formation of suspended particles such as PM_2.5.

Dr. Chen is a long-term member and supporter of the A&WMA and its Journal (JA&WMA). He has attended most of the annual conferences and exhibitions (ACEs), attended and presented papers for International Specialty Conferences, served as chair and vice-chair of the Measurement Techniques and Instrumentation (AAM) Technical Coordinating Committee (TCC) in 2015–2019, and is a contributor to the Atmospheric Chemistry (APC) and Visibility and Radiative Transfer (APV) TCCs. He has judged student poster sessions, solicited AAM sessions and research paper submissions, conducted peer reviews for ACEs and JA&WMA, and published 12 well-cited JA&WMA papers. He was a recipient of the 2016 Arthur C. Stern Distinguished Paper Award.

Dr. Chen holds an editorial position with Aerosol Science and Engineering and served as a guest editor for Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics and Journal of Geophysical Research–Atmospheres. He was recognized as an outstanding reviewer by several journals, including receiving the 2022 Outstanding Reviewer Award presented by Particuology. Dr. Chen works with Las Vegas communities to address air pollution and environmental justice concerns by assessing disparity in pollutant exposure, for which he received both research and service awards from the UNLV School of Public Health.