Research

Faculty Advisor: Prof. Sally E. Pusede (lab website)

Dissertation Title: Climate change, inequality, and urbanization as drivers of air pollution

Research Concentration: Nitrogen oxide (NOx) chemistry, air pollution trends, environmental justice, data science

Current work: Utilizing high-resolution datasets and data science techniques to assess environmental justice from an atmospheric perspective

Committee: Dr. Xi Yang and Dr. James Galloway

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Publications

1. Demetillo, M. A. G., Harkins, C., McDonald, B. C., Chodrow, P. S., Sun, K., and Pusede, S. E.: Space-based observational constraints on NO₂ air pollution inequality from diesel traffic in major U.S. cities, Geophys. Res. Lett., 48, e2021GL094333, doi:10.1029/2021GL094333, 2021.
2. Demetillo, M. A. G., Navarro, A., Knowles, K. K., Fields, K. P., Geddes, J. A., Nowlan, C. R., Sun, K., Judd, L. M., Al-Saadi, J., Diskin, G. S., McDonald, B. C., and Pusede, S. E.: Observing nitrogen dioxide air pollution inequality using high-resolution remote sensing measurements in Houston, Texas, Environ. Sci. Technol., doi:10.1021/acs.est.0c01864, 2020. Read the C&EN article.
3. Demetillo, M. A. G., Anderson, J. F., Geddes, J. A., Najacht, E., Herrera, S. A.,Kabasares, K.,Kotsakis, A., Yang, X., Lerdau, M. T., and Pusede, S. E.: Observing severe drought influences on ozone air pollution in California, Environ. Sci. Technol., doi:10.1021/acs.est.8b04852, 2019. Read the Science Magazine News article.

Presentations

1. Space-Based Observational Constraints on NO2 Air Pollution Inequality From Diesel Traffic in Major US Cities, American Geophysical Union Annual Meeting, A13A-08, December 2021, talk
2. Observing controls over the temporal variability in census-tract-level nitrogen dioxide air pollution inequality in major U.S. cities with TROPOMI, American Geophysical Union Annual Meeting, A111-0016, virtual, December 2020, poster
3. Observing nitrogen dioxide air pollution inequality using high spatial resolution remote sensing, Atmospheric Chemical Mechanisms, virtual, November 2020, talk
4. Assessing air pollutant exposure inequities using high-resolution nitrogen dioxide datasets, University of Virginia Enviroday Symposium, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, February 2019, talk.
5. Observing severe drought influences on ozone air pollution in Central California, University of Virginia Enviroday Symposium, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, February 2019, poster.
6. Assessing air pollutant exposure inequities using high-resolution nitrogen dioxide datasets, A51M-2375, American Geophysical Union Annual Meeting, Washington, DC, December 2018, poster.
7. Utilizing high-resolution datasets to evaluate air pollution exposure inequalities, Diversifying Scholarship Conference, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, November 2018, poster.
8. Severe drought alters dominant mechanisms of atmospheric oxidation, University of Virginia Enviroday Symposium, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, February 2018, talk.

Latest work:

• April 2020. Awarded NASA FINESST research grant for proposal titled, ‘Climate change, inequality and urbanization as drivers of pollution’.
• April 2020. Awarded Jefferson Scholars Foundation Fellowship
• February 2020. Led a vehicle-based NO2 measurement research campaign in Dakar, Senegal.
• November 2019. Installed NASA Pandora Spectrometer at Université Cheikh Anta Diop in Dakar, Senegal.
• June 2019. Attended the Public Science Project’s Summer Institute on Critical Participatory Action Research (CPAR) at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York City, New York. I will incorporate the community engagement techniques and new perspectives I learned during the workshop in my high-resolution NO₂ environmental justice research.
• May 2019. Awarded the UVA Data Sciences Institute Fellowship for proposal titled, ‘Identifying colonial policies of urban planning and racial-segregation as drivers of air pollution in Dakar, Senegal.’ This work is in collaboration with the Religious Studies department.
• April 2019. University of Virginia Office for Equal Opportunity and Civil Rights (EOCR) grant.
• April 2019. Awarded NSF GRFP Honorable Mention.
• February 2019. Attended the Weather Research and Forecasting Workshop at the National Center for Atmospheric Research Foothills Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado.
• Awarded one of AGU’s Outstanding Student Presentation Awards for my poster titled, ‘Assessing air pollutant exposure inequities using high-resolution nitrogen dioxide datasets.’ December 2018.
• November 2018. Working at the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences in Damian Grundle’s laboratory. I am preparing and characterizing dissolved- N₂O sea water samples for isotopic analysis, which I collected as part of a research cruise onboard the R/V Oceanus.
• August 2018. Completed my first research cruise off the Pacific Northwest Coast. I collected dissolved-gas sea water samples to study the oceanic production of nitrous oxide using isotopic analysis! This work is a collaboration with Damian Grundle at the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences.
• Awarded the UVA Data Sciences Institute Presidential Fellowship for proposal titled, ‘Evaluating air pollution exposure and environmental justice by integrating novel high-resolution nitrogen dioxide and human activity datasets.‘ This project is in collaboration with the Department of Urban and Environmental Planning in UVA’s School of Architecture. May 2018.