Lea Hildebrandt Ruiz
Chemical Engineering
Air Resource Engineering
Lea Hildebrandt Ruiz is associate professor in the department of Chemical Engineering. She joined the faculty in 2012 as assistant professor, while joining the Center for Energy and Environmental Resources at the same time. She focuses on air quality, atmospheric chemistry, nanoparticles, mass spectrometry, energy, and environmental sustainability. Her research group looks at emissions of pollutants and how they are transformed in the atmosphere.
A main motivation for Prof. Hildebrandt Ruiz’s research is that these air pollutants adversely impact human health. Through research, her group can better understand where pollutants come from and how they're transformed in the atmosphere. With that information, more effective policy measures can be developed that are aimed at reducing pollutant levels and improving human health. At CEER, her group has various research tools including an environmental chamber, where they can simulate the atmosphere and study interactions of different pollutants using state of the science instrumentation. They also have a mobile laboratory which they use to take measurements in a variety of realistic outdoor environments. Her group’s work also includes indoor air quality, including the impacts of cooking, cleaning, and disinfection.
