Respiratory particles can remain suspended, accumulate, move with airflow, and be removed by ventilation, filtration, deposition, or inactivation.
Field dossier / 01 Research
Healthy buildings and aerosol science.
The field's center of gravity is moving from comfort and odor toward exposure, source control, infectious aerosols, ventilation, filtration, and measurable room performance.
This is a working map of people and institutions IAQng should keep learning from, citing, interviewing, and inviting into the conversation.
Why it matters
The science changed the operating question.
Risk depends on source strength, room volume, air mixing, dwell time, density, activity, and local context, not just a single sensor reading.
The building operator becomes part of public health because room conditions shape productivity, infection risk, cognition, and comfort.
People to know
Researchers who changed the conversation.
Joseph G. Allen / Harvard Healthy Buildings
Made indoor air a mainstream health, business, and policy issue, and helped push the case for mandatory indoor-air standards in public buildings.
Lidia Morawska / QUT ILAQH
One of the central figures in the airborne-transmission debate and a leading voice for national indoor-air-quality standards.
Linsey Marr / Virginia Tech
Studies airborne virus transport, aerosol physics, and environmental engineering questions that connect lab science to real rooms.
Donald Milton / University of Maryland PHAB Lab
Connects public health, occupational health, virology, bioaerosol sampling, influenza, COVID-19, and exhaled aerosol research.
Shelly Miller / University of Colorado Boulder
Works across indoor air, schools, ventilation, filtration, GUV, and practical mitigation for shared indoor environments.
Jose-Luis Jimenez / University of Colorado Boulder
Helped translate aerosol science for public audiences and was a prominent voice in the shift toward airborne-transmission recognition.
Catherine Noakes / University of Leeds
Bridges ventilation, fluid dynamics, infection risk, and the design of safer shared indoor environments.
Yuguo Li / University of Hong Kong
Known for research on ventilation, airborne infection, and the mechanics of how buildings shape exposure.
Institutions to track
The labs and centers that keep showing up.
Healthy Buildings Program
Policy, business case, workplace health, building guidance, and public communication around IAQ.
International Laboratory for Air Quality and Health
A WHO Collaborating Centre on Air Quality and Health with deep work on particles, exposure, and airborne risk.
Public Health AeroBiology Lab
Bioaerosol sampling, exhaled particles, influenza, respiratory infection, and airborne infection control.
Air Quality and Environmental Engineering
Indoor air, ventilation, schools, pollution, and practical engineering controls.
Important reading
Starter papers for the IAQng source base.
- Mandating indoor air quality for public buildings - Morawska, Allen, Bahnfleth, Marr, Miller, Milton, Noakes, and others.
- It Is Time to Address Airborne Transmission of COVID-19 - Morawska and Milton.
- Ten scientific reasons in support of airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2 - Greenhalgh, Jimenez, Prather, Tufekci, Fisman, and Schooley.
- Aerosol emission and superemission during human speech increase with voice loudness - Asadi and colleagues.